Mellolaes Tells Erestor a Story
by ScribeofHeroes
Summary: While Erestor is laid up, Estel sends his beloved nurse to keep his friend company. Mellolaes tells the Noldo a story of her people and his to keep him entertained. Neither can foresee the results.
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own, neither did I create Estel/Aragorn, Erestor, Elrond, Glorfindel, Middle Earth, Imladris/The Hidden Valley, or Green Wood the Great. J. R. R. Tolkien did and I am extremely grateful. :)  
**

 **I did create Mellolaes the Silvan nurse.  
**

 **This piece has been written for entertainment purposes only. So please read, and, hopefully, be entertained. :)  
**

Mellolaes pulled on her mittens and tossed her hair back. A voice piped up from near her knees. "Come on, Melly! Let's go, let's go play in the snow!"

Mellolaes glanced down and grinned at her charge. Estel stomped with pure excitement before her slamming both his booted feet into wood used to much lighter, elven steps. Thankfully, the planks held.

The elleth laughed. Then she held a mittened hand out to the boy. "All right then, mellon nin. Let us indeed go, go play in the snow."

The manling grabbed her hand, then sprang forward. He dragged her to the stairs. The Silvan continued to laugh. She stood by as her charge stopped, then climbed up and slid down the banister. She followed with steps silent as a cat's. He filled the winter quiet halls of Imladris with a "whoop." Mellolaes laughed again. When he caught on the the hand-rest at the bottom of the stairs, she held out a hand to help him down.

Above them, Erestor stepped out of his room. He watched the two youths walk toward the main doors. The Noldo shook his head.

Estel glanced over his shoulder and spotted the elf. He smiled and waved at him. "Hi Erestor!"

The ellon lifted a hand in salutation. Mellolaes turned herself and waved at the older elf before she continued toward the main doors. Estel stepped jauntily along beside her.

Erestor shook his head again and went back into his room to look for a book. He liked to read on these "usually" quiet, winter days a month or so after Yule, when he was least busy.

. . .

Mellolaes strode up the hill holding her skirts up, so their hem just barely brushed the snow. Estel strode after her dragging his sled. Mellolaes let him do so by himself. He was now a whole six years old after all. She grinned down at him as he stepped straight-backed, head held high. Snow flakes caught in his dark hair and on his lashes, which were long for a boy's.

The elleth lowered her gaze further to the manling's feet. The soles of his boots disappeared into a layer of soft snow, but the crust of ice beneath it held the human just fine. Mellolaes looked back up into the boy's face. He smiled back at her. His eyes gleamed. "We're going to go fast today, aren't we Melly?"

She winked. "We certainly are!"

Estel leapt into the air. Then he dragged his sled after him a little bit faster. Mellolaes turned her mischievous grin upon the top of the hill. Once there, the two sat upon the long sled. The elleth sat behind and the manling in front. After a few kicks from them, the sled tipped over the hill's crest. Then they "whooshed" forward.

Estel gave a shout of joy. Mellolaes joined him with her own. As soon as they'd slowed to a stop on a flat area at the bottom of the hill, Estel was up and dragging the sled toward it's top again. Mellolaes laughed. Then she followed.

Glorfindel watched them. His chuckling shook a few flakes of white out of the golden tresses cascading from his head. After watching the two "youths" another moment he turned and continued his loops throughout the land of Imladris. Despite the Hidden Valley's reputation for safety, her Captain believed a habit of vigilance worth retaining.

Mellolaes and her charge took many rides down the hill near Elrond's house that day. Once, on a trek back up its side, Estel looked down and stopped. His mouth opened in glee. One of his mittened hands pointed as the other tugged at the elleth's skirt. "Look Melly, Erestor's come outside!"

The Silvan turned and saw the ellon had indeed emerged from the house without wearing a coat, but carrying a book in his long-fingered hand. The ellon began to stride down the porch lining the side of the building. Mellolaes tilted her head and stared at her employer's steward thoughtfully. "I think he only wants to read outside for a little while Estel. Not join us in sledding."

The boy shrugged. A tight-lipped grin showed his dimples before he replied, "I know, but it's good seeing him getting some fresh air."

Mellolaes turned a smirk upon her charge. "Oh really ... and why is that, mellon nin?"

Estel looked back up at her. "Because Glorfindel, ada, and my brothers all say he's turned into a "house-mouse."

Mellolaes laughed at that. Then she looked back down at the ellon. He was scowling at them. She bent over and whispered just above her charge's ear. "I think he heard us, Estel."

The manling looked down at the ellon again and raised a mitten hand. "Don't worry Erestor! I know you're not a house-mouse."

The ellon's scowl disappeared. He gave a slight bow before turning away and raising the book, already opened, before his eyes.

Mellolaes giggled at his actions. Then she tugged her charge's hand. "Come along Estel, I think we can get a few more slides in before going back inside ourselves."

They had gone three more times before it happened. Mellolaes had already decided the fourth would be their last. Her charge was beginning to get chilled. She planned to take him into the hall of fire afterward and let him chatter to the elves there about their sledding expedition. He should feel more a part of the community that way, and it would do them good to be reminded of a child's simple joys. They carried so many shadows from the past they often spoke of there instead.

Mellolaes engrossed herself in these plans. So, it was Estel who noticed it first. He turned with a frown and pointed. "Melly, what's that?"

The Silvan turned her head to see. The trees' tops were moving, but not in a natural way. By the spreading of the snow she knew it must be a wind moving them, but such a wind. It blasted through the trees bending their tops in its wake.

As the blast exited the trees, the elleth crouched over her manling charge. She pulled him into her encircling arms and against her chest. The wind hit neither of them. Instead it barreled past, just barely brushing their hair. It seemed directly aimed at ...

Mellolaes turned to see the Noldo striding back and forth on the porch eyes still locked on the pages of his book. She shouted to him. "Erestor! Look out!"

The Noldo snapped his book shut. He half-turned. Then his furrowed eyebrows flew up. The wind slammed into him. He hit the ice-covered stone. Estel screamed.

Mellolaes plucked both her charge and his sled up. Then she sped to the crest of the hill. There she slammed the sled down, leapt upon it with both feet, and bent forward. Holding Estel on her hip, she slid down the hill. This time she aimed for a bank of snow facing the porch. The sled reached it, sped up its crest, and took off. She and Estel went flying.

The sled struck the railing of the porch. Mellolaes flipped over the latter. Clutching Estel to herself, she rotated in the air, and then landed on both feet. A patch of snow had blown against the side of the house forming a thick layer were her feet stuck.

The elleth then set the boy down beside her in the same patch of snow. She rushed toward the ellon still lying on his side. He groaned as she reached him.

Melloales knelt down beside him. With moist eyes she held her hands out. They hovered over the ellon's prone body as she whispered, _"Erestor ..?"_

 **Kids, do "not" try what Mellolaes just did at home! Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to, though. :)  
**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own, neither did I create Estel/Aragorn, Erestor, Elrond, Middle Earth, Imladris/The Hidden Valley, Green Wood the Great, The Lay of Luthien," "The Tragedy of Turin Tarambar" or Gondolin. J. R. R. Tolkien did, and I am extremely grateful to him for doing so.**

 **I did create Mellolaes the Silvan nurse.**

 **This piece has been written for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.**

"Erestor sounds so sad, Melly. Won't you go and cheer him up like you do me?"

Mellolaes paused in her painting. She raised her gaze from the parchment resting between her and Estel. Then she cocked her head at the boy. "Are you sure I could cheer him up the way I cheer you up mellon nin?"

The manling nodded his eyes looking straight into hers and his mouth set in a firm line. "Oh yes, Melly, you can cheer anyone up."

The elleth chuckled. Then she looked back to the banner lying between them. Her mind wondered back over the hours since Imladris' steward landed hard on an ice-covered porch.

The bone in one of Erector's hips had been broken by the fall. A human would have sustained even greater injury. The Noldo was sure to mend faster than any mortal would from a similar accident. However, his damaged bone, muscles, and skin pained him unless he took the medicine Lord Elrond commanded he consume daily. The steward would have to lie abed for too long a period of time from his own perspective in order to heal properly too.

Mellolaes had walked by the ellon's room only yesterday. Melancholy notes had floated out of it. The flute music had sounded like anger and frustration and crying to her. Apparently Estel had heard it too. His voice broke through her thoughts again. "Won't you help him cheer up Melly? Please?"

The elleth almost flinched. Her charge was much nearer now. She sat up straighter and looked into the boy's eyes. They were moist and pleading. Paint-stained fingers had wrapped around a sleeve of her gown. The manling's knees rested in their painting as he now knelt right in front of her. The elleth smiled sadly at him, swallowed, and finally nodded. "I will … attempt … to cheer him, mellon nin."

. . .

"Good morning, Erestor!"

The Noldo raised his eyes from his book and blinked. Estel's Silvan nurse had slipped into his room carrying his tray. The articles sitting upon it were arranged just so, indicating to him she had not arranged them. She must have relieved the servant who had been carrying it to him of her duty. When Erestor realized this, he blinked at the Silvan again. "I cannot agree with that statement until I know where my student is. Why are you here serving me instead of staying with him?"

Mellolaes set his tray on a table near Erestor's bed wearing the same smile she'd come in with. Then she sat on a nearby stool and smoothed her skirts before looking at him and replying. "Well, my charge charged me with your care."

She gave Erestor an even brighter smile as she continued. "He is also currently with his adda. Your injury has built higher Estel's desire to become a healer himself. He has captured the promise of lessons with his ada for the whole morning and perhaps into the afternoon as well." Her lips went silent and then spread into a huge smile again aimed at him.

The dark-haired elf lifted an eyebrow at the Silvan. "Could not you be giving him those lessons yourself?"

Mellolaes shrugged her shoulders and reached for the teapot on the tray. "I could, but I hate separating those two when their heads are bent over bandages and healing pastes."

Erestor watched her pour the tea into a cup. "Could you not inform Estel I'm satisfied with my usual care?"

Mellolaes lifted the spout of the teapot and her gaze. As she fixed the latter on the Noldo's face, she raised her eyebrows at him as well. "Are you?"

Erestor frowned and looked away. "I am as pleased and comfortable as I can be at such a time."

Mellolaes pursed her lips. She began studying the room while thinking of a reply. A stack of books rested by the ellon's elbow. His flute lay at his other side beside the uninjured hip. The sight of the instrument hardened her resolve.

Mellolaes took a deep breath and crossed her arms. "Your friend and mine sent me to make you feel better." She raised her chin and looked down at him. "And I plan to."

Erestor looked back to the pages of the book he held. "My hip will not be fully healed for some days. If an emergency occurs that needs Lord Elrond and his captain's attention, someone else will need to watch Estel … and not just his brothers. 'I' obviously cannot do so for some time obviously."

Mellolaes' fists clenched in her lap. The burn of challenge pulsed through her veins. The more the ancient elf pushed her away, the more firmly she planted her roots. The more he insisted on being miserable, the more she itched to make him smile.

 _You will not dissuade me infuriating one._

Her gaze fell upon his books as her brows knit together in consternation. Then her eyes flew wide open. "What are all these?" She picked up the book on top of the pile, "The Lay of Luthien?"

Then she caught sight of the title of the book "The Lay of Luthien" had rested upon. "The Tragedy of Turin Tarambar" lay so that the title of the book beneath it was readable also, "The Battle of Unnumbered Tears." With a slight shove Mellolaes uncovered the title of the book beneath both of these. She revealed, "The Fall of Gondalin." The elleth's jaw dropped. Her mouth hung wide open. "No wonder you're so melancholy!"

Eresror scowled up at the elleth. "All these are works of art, in calligraphy, in poetry, in meaning. They are also recordings of my people's history, of the actions of our heroes."

"And their failures, deaths, and follies," Mellolaes added. She studied the book of her hand. Even this tale, the cheeriest of all these, really, ended with a sorrow that had touched her own people, which ended up giving birth to even more sorrow for them later. Her eyes remained wide as all this buzzed in her brain. "How long has it been since you've heard a cheerful tale Erestor?"

The Steward sighed through gritted teeth before he replied. "Mellolaes Merilvadian. I have no desire to hear of how a fox outwitted a wolf, a bird built her nest, or a bear made off with the hive of honey. I find such simplistic stories annoying."

Mellolaes let the book she held fall a short distance atop the others before looking at him. Her hands snapped to her hips. "You think those the only tales I know, or my people tell?"

Erestor shook his head and looked back to his own book again. "Whatever other tales your people know worth hearing, I have already heard them and overseen their copying as with my own people's stories and those of the Sindar."

"Perhaps you might like to hear one of my people's tales that has not yet been written down."

"Such a tale would hardly be worth hearing."

"Oh?"

"All the great stories remembered have already been written down, as well as put into verses and then music long ago. There is no worthy tale already lived left to record now unless it just occurred. We only rerecord worthy tales endlessly as the paper they are written upon turns to dust."

The elleth stared at him for a dozen heat-beats. "What if it were not so?"

He looked up to stare at her. She grinned at him, or perhaps it was a smirk. "What if I told you a tale, not yet recorded, though widely known among my people. Would a new tale cheer you now?"

"No 'cheery' tale is truly worth immortalizing in verse."

Mellolaes jaw tightened. "Is that a challenge?"

Erestor stared back, he also did not blink for two dozen heartbeats. "Will you leave if I find it unmoving?"

A Silvan smirk spread over Mellolaes' face. "You must give me one hour at least."

Erestor nodded, closed his book, and set it aside without taking his eyes off the elleth. "Then you have a challenge."

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to. :)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	3. Chapter 3

**I do not own, neither did I create Erestor, Manwe, Ulmo, Middle Earth, or the Noldo. J. R. R. Tolkien did, and I am extremely grateful to him.:)**

 **I did create Mellolaes the Silvan nurse and the new, or rather, ancient characrer shown in this chapter.**

 **This piece has been written for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.**

A figure walked along the mountainside. Its limbs were slight and back bent, but it was so tall the stoop did not make the form short. It trudged as straight as the cliffs and slopes of the mountain allowed never looking to either side or behind, but only at what lay before it. Rags stiffened by a crust of dust covered the form in places. A shadow passed over its head. Finally, the elf looked skyward.

Another form wheeled there. A bird of prey circled so high and silhouetted against the noonday light, it was hard for the details of its form to be seen by even elven eyes. A scowl washed over the elf's face. He picked up a stone and threw it at the eagle.

The rock was fist-sized, but far more aerodynamic. The projectile flew straight and high like an arrow, before gravity pulled it back down. The eagle had not even had to shy for it. The bird gazed back at the thrower with pity. Somehow, the figure noticed or guessed this. He shouted back.

"Do not waste mercy on me, slave! Go back to your master and tell him I curse his name! I defy those who call him merciful! If your master had truly known mercy, he would have sunk our ships moments after they left his shores! Instead he watched us land here in the bosom of his brother. I know how gentle Melkor's caresses are now. And every one of us here will soon know the same. They will also taste his lash, see his face, hear his laugh … We were fools … But his own brother must have known. He let us race here to our own punishment. Perhaps it was only 'just', but how dare he allow himself to be called Merciful!"

A rumbling sounded from above and to his right. The elf bent his head only slightly to gaze up the mountainside. Eagerness flashed in his eyes. The rock higher than he and just as wide rolled toward him. He closed his eyes and remained still, only opening them again when he felt the breeze of its passing a good arm's length away. He turned and stared after the boulder as it fell over a cliff.

The ellon screamed and fell to his knees. In the silence that followed, a sound reached his ears. He held up his head. A grim smile curled up his lips. He looked up at the bird again. "Your master thinks he can play with me and cheat me of quick and sure death? No, not if Ulmo will show me more mercy than he!"

Now the elf ran straight ahead with all his strength. His hair flew back. The cold air rushed over and around his face, but he never broke stride the whole way, not even when he approached a different cliff than the one the boulder fell over. As his body rushed down through open air he straightened himself, hoping to break his skulls on rocks beneath the water. Instead he felt the shock of liquid all around him. He sank like the stones he knew so well, into the darkness, but not to his death … Indeed, his story was only beginning …

. . .

Mellolaes had closed her eyes as she told the tale. Now she opened them again. A corner of her mouth curled up as she looked into the face of the ellon huddled beneath the covers of his bed. Then she bit her bottom lip to hold back a giggle.

Erestor was giving her the dirtiest look she had ever seen on his face. Black brows squeezed together so tight they almost didn't look even like a "V" anymore. The black eyes beneath them were so scrunched they almost didn't glint. Mellolaes tightened her whole being to keep back the ripples of trapped giggles inside, but humor still came through the lilt in her voice. "Shall I continue?"

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to.**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	4. Chapter 4

**I did not create, nor do I own Middle Earth, Ossiriand, Erestor, Manwe, Valinor, Varda, Noldo elves, green elves, or orcs. Tolkien first wrote of them, and I am so grateful to him for it.**

 **I did, however, create Sarnin the Green elf seen in this chapter and Sarnhael the Noldo.**

 **This chapter was written for entertainment purposes only, so please read and, hopefully, be entertained. (chuckles)**

Sarnin pushed her foot through the water. Her eyes searched the gravel and sand revealed by her shadow. The sun heated the back of her head and flashed off the water enough to dazzle even her elven eyes somewhat. Where her shadow fell, though, Sarnin could see treasures.

The stones covering the riverbed were smooth. Those she found buried in dirt or coated in dust upon or within the ground were always rough. Those the water ran over, like feet continually taking the same path, had surfaces without sharp points. She loved this about them.

Sarnin knelt in the water and closely examined a certain stone. She reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she did. Then a cry made her look up. After gazing with open mouth, Sarnin laughed and waved.

Above her, the sun cast a shadow. Her elven eyes could discern its shape to be that of an eagle. The sound of its cry, deeper, more resonant, and more careful than those who nested in the "low cliffs" of these mountains told her it was one of Manwe's servants. Without its call, she would have had difficulty telling it apart from the eagles who'd never seen Valinor.

Manwe's servants were giants to the rest of their kind, but flew higher than any of them as well. Therefore, there size was always difficult to judge from below. This time, though, Sarnin was sure.

The eagle swooped in a loop above her crying out in a friendly way. Then it flapped its wings and rose even higher into the sky and out of her sight. Sarnin sighed. Her shoulders slumped. She had enjoyed the momentary company.

Her kin had left Sarnin to enjoy her uncommon interest by herself while they searched the area for signs of their quarry. She hoped they might also see the eagle and that he now saw them. Most of her folk liked knowing, though they'd failed to travel to his shores, Manwe still sent his servants to watch over their lands and them.

Sarnin's people also loved the Valar whose music they heard in the many waters. They hadn't crossed over sea, but several rivers running through their land made it great. Trees grew lush and high. Birds and beasts grew fat and strong. Always, her folk added their own voices to the music all this made. As for her, Sarnin, delighted in how water made stones so smooth and how they shone in the light of the sun.

Sarnin looked back down into the water with a smile. Then her brows drew together. She placed her hand in the water. Something had changed. There was sadness in the water, horror, pain.

Sarnin raised her head and looked upstream. A turn in the canyon walls hid whatever lay beyond from her sight. If she was to find the source of this sorrow, and do something about it, she would have to travel farther than she had told her kin she would.

Sarnin looked downstream. Her sister's children had cautioned her to stay near the place they left her, but … If there "was" someone in trouble upstream, hurt, wounded, hunted … They were likely alone. Only the waters of Ulmo carried news of their plight to her. The sole friendly eyes to see her then, would be those of Manwe's eagle, the Valar king himself, and their Creator.

Sarnin looked straight up. She thought she could still see a dot of a shadow in the sky. She didn't know for sure. Did it even matter?

The elleth swallowed. Then she looked upstream again, set her jaw, and set out. She would both do and trust mercy.

. . .

"Sarnin …"

Mellolaes jerked. Erestor's voice had pulled her out of the story. She glanced at the ellon. "Yes ..?"

"That is one of your people isn't it?"

Mellolaes lips pursed together. She had rather hoped to hang on to the mystery in her story. However, Erestor was speaking in that somewhat curious, yet mostly bored voice, used by those who've already seen through your words into the reality within them.

Mellolaes' brows drew together in annoyance. "Yes."

"She is married to Sarnhael, and the grandmother of Tirven now, yes?"

Mellolaes crossed her arms over her chest and huffed out a breath. "Yes."

"Nice ellon." Erestor commented. "Polite. I knew despite his common features, he had to have some Noldo in him along with a bloodline from Doriath I think. I didn't believe he could have such a sour ancestor in his history as this character earlier mentioned, though."

"Are you going to let me tell this story or guess aloud what you 'think' will happen every time it occurs to you!"

Erestor looked away from the ceiling to glance at Mellolaes. She looked ready to throw something at him. He had already been on the receiving end of such happenings. Erestor held up his hands in what he hoped Mellolaes would find a placating gesture. "Peace … I will listen in silence if you wish. However, you should know now, I am not inclined to enjoy romance in stories unless it is 'very' well done and mixed in with other things." Erestor then crossed his hands over his chest and looked up at the ceiling again. "Continue."

Mellolaes blew out a blast of air from her lips and glared at him, but she continued just the same.

. . .

The sun now shone from behind the canyon walls. Sarnin had run along the river's shores crossing it when a shallow or dry place appeared that was also the straightest path to the next turn in the canyon walls. As she did so, the shadows had grown long indeed. Finally, she made one more turn and saw him.

She ran through the water to him. Droplets sprayed up around her as she fell upon her knees beside the form. She turned the creature over and gasped. You could hardly see he "was" an elf.

His ears and cheeks were marred by red scars. His skin shone and drooped slightly as if the skin had melted like wax and then re-hardened. Sarnin placed her a hand over her mouth and shuddered. Then she removed her hand and began to examine him further.

Most of the ellon's body was exposed to her eyes. Remnants of clothing clung to him as a strap over one shoulder and tatters which had once been attached to this now hanging down and plastered over his waist and down toward his knees instead. Beneath them lay a belt wrapped around material meant to cover him from waist to mid-thigh. Lying mostly exposed to her eyes were his ribs, tiny bones of the spinal column and long bones of his arms and legs leading to the smaller ones of his fingers and toes. Skin remained stretched over them, but failed to hide the bones' shapes from her.

Sarnin picked up his hands and turned them over. His fingers and palms were also red, having melted and re-hardened into scar tissue. The healer shivered again. Then she picked up and slung the ellon's bpdy over her shoulder before turning to walk back the way she'd come.

The healer already knew he lived. The elleth had heard his breathing when she first came upon him, though it had remained soft. His heart-rate was slow, but steady. The water had cooled, but sun had warmed his skin. His head had lain out of the water so he could breathe. She'd felt his skull and found no crack. It was something else that kept him from waking.

Sarnin had been surprised, somewhat, to find a starving, burned elf in rags on her day dedicated to smooth-stone searching. She was not surprised to find him washed up ashore where the river grew wide and shallow, however. Elves float.

Unlike most beasts, Green elves had long realized they and their elven-kin did not readily sink. They had to gain momentum by jumping from far up and then straighten their body to dive deep, before kicking their feet strongly once they had stopped sinking to dive even deeper. Of course, there weren't many deep waters in Ossiriand.

That did not mean water was "never" dangerous for Sarnin's people. The erosion and collapse of whole banks during a flood was very dangerous. So were sweeping currents when they threw one against rocks. Still, if an elf could be fished out of water, have water they'd breathed in forced out of their lungs, and have any cracked bones mended through the healing touch, they were often fine in a few days. They were often more water-shy afterwards, but otherwise fine.

This elf seemed to have escaped all these things, as if he had dived into deep water only to float to the surface again and be carried she knew not how far. She felt in him no injury, but great despair and anger instead. He might still wake, he might still not.

What she did know was she could not leave him to be found by flesh-eaters. She would, instead, carry him back to her kin among whom they'd both be safe. Otherwise, they might be caught out here by her kin's quarry.

The sun set. The stars came out, and the moon also, somewhere. However, it had not risen above the canyon walls. Few stars shone down between them upon Sarnin's head or before her feet either. She was not blind in that darkness, but there was a great deal of it surrounding her. She couldn't climb up the cliffs with her patient. She would have to use an entire arm to carry him up with her, and in this darkness, she needed both to seek hand-holds.

Laughter wafted out of the shadow on her right. Sarnin started and turned toward it. Laughter came from her other side too, and she spun around to face it. Her widened eyes searched the shadow. They picked out a form stepping into the starlight. The latter flashed off pointed teeth now grinning at her.

A chill went down Sarnin's spine, but she gently laid her patient in the cool sand at her feet. Then her fingers began digging into granuals for something larger. Her other hand began to untie a knot at her waist.

Sarnin gripped something hard in the sand. The orc charged. She threw. The stone struck one of the orc's glinting eyes. She heard a yipe.

Then Sarnin spun around and smacked her pouch of stones against the temple of the orc behind her. Both goblins grumbled and backed away a few steps. They then stared at her. The wheezing laughter began again.

"The fatter meat fights, Snagalug."

"Indeed it does, Burzgnash. Perhaps bones and skin aren't so bad all on their own after all … Leave the cartilage connected bones with us, elleth, and we will let you run away."

"No."

Both goblins growled, lowered themselves into squatting positions and began to circle her. They stared at the bag of stones hanging from her right hand. Sarnin spun in place herself with them trying to keep both enemies visible in the corners of her eyes.

They growled again showing her their gleaming teeth in the pale light. Sarnin glared back. Then she began to spin the stone-filled pouch above her head. "Go, I say, before you die. Death now closes in on you!"

The orcs laughed again. Then one picked up an even larger stone than she had thrown before and tossed it at her. Sarnin jerked away from it. The missile flew past her head. She felt the air move by her with it. Then, she spun and caught the stone the other orc had thrown at her back. She turned again and threw this missile at the first orc. It struck him in the head. The orc behind pounced upon her and got the pack of stones in the snout.

Both orcs backed away shaking their heads. After this, they paused and laughed again. The elleth's eyes grew wide.

More eyes appeared in the darkness. A dozen pairs seemed to surround her as she turned her head and then her whole form to take this sight in. As they closed in, they blocked Sarnin's way to the canyon walls, as well as upstream and down. Any three enemies on either side would converge on her if she fled.

The first orc gave a wheezing sigh. "We didn't want to share your flesh with the rest of our pack, elleth. But since we couldn't devour you before they got here, we'll have to settle for scraps of you."

Sarnin swallowed. Then she hardened her form, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. She spoke aloud to Varda and Manwe, but mostly to the one who had seen, heard, and created the elves long before those two had known of her people. So surely, He must see her now. Then Sarnin lowered herself to the ground, spread her form over her patient's, and went entirely still.

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to.**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	5. Chapter 5

**I do not own Erestor, Middle Earth, Manwe, Melkor Morgoth, or Denethor.**

 **I did create Mellolaes, Sarnin, Lathwinn, and her brothers.**

 **This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained. :)**

Twangs erupted around her. Sarnin opened her eyes. Crunches and splashes surrounded her. Sarnin raised her head and looked about. Dark lumps lay upon the gravel, the sand, and in the water. Whooshes ending in softer sounds of stirred gravel and crushed sand followed. Then forms stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the stars.

The figures were slight. Cloth hung from their shoulders and heads. Slender legs moved beneath the hems of these green cloaks. Three of the forms were shorter than Sarnin. Two taller were taller. A merry voice came from one of the taller ones.

"Why did you tell the first two to run away, aunty? You 'know' we five came here just to hunt them, whatever you came to do."

The shortest and slimmest figure walked up to Sarnin. A soft and musical voice lilted from it. "She warned them, because she is gentle-hearted. She was not supposed to be within 'feeling' distance of a stranger let alone surrounded by death this night."

A younger elleth threw her hood back and smiled into the face of the older. Some tears gleamed in her eyes. "I'm sorry you had to be surrounded by death just now, Aunt Sarnin."

Sarnin smiled down into the face of her niece. Tears shone as a brilliant gloss over her eyes too. "I am alright now young one."

Another voice spoke from near a larger lump in the sand. "We never expected you to play bait for us, Aunt Sarnin. What were you about down here this time of night?"

A sterner voice came from another tall form. "You went farther than we told you we would be able to feel you."

Lathwinn looked down at the form before her aunt's feet and pointed. "He is why, is he not?"

Sarnin nodded, "Yes."

Lathwinn knelt down before the form of her aunt's patient. Her brows rose. She whistled to herself.

One of the taller forms looked their way. "Is he going to live until we get him home to bury him?"

The other tall form turned it's head. Lathwinn could feel the scowl from it mirroring her own. Lathwinn then turned back and touched the unconscious ellon at her aunt's feet. "I think … even if he knows it not … this one is too stubborn to die just yet."

"Good for him. Now take him and our aunt out of this trap of a canyon to where the stars and moon shine unhindered. We, your brothers, shall gather and then pile up the orcs' bodies far from the river."

The shortest ellon lifted his face to the sky and groaned. The tall one who gave no orders slapped him on the back. "Brace thyself, like a warrior, little brother. You are the one who always insists on accompanying us. Our hunts aren't all brave acts of heroism."

The other tall ellon sighed heavily. The most silent of the wakeful ellon rolled his eyes, but all four of them went to work gathering up the orc bodies as Lathwinn guided her aunt to the canyon wall. Once there, she helped both her and their patient out of the canyon, though her hand often rested on a hilt peeking out from her belt. Soon all three of them were indeed out where the silver light of star and moon bathed them. The two elleth peered back over the edge of the canyon wall to see the wakeful ellon dragging their burdens to the point from which they had ascended out since it had proven itself a place one could climb up carrying a burden. Smiling, the two elleth then turned their attention fully to their patient.

. . .

"Why do you Silvans always put Lathwinn the Great into your stories?"

Mellolaes snapped out of her story-teller's trance and glared at Erestor. "Because she is Lathwinn the Great!"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	6. Chapter 6

**I neither own nor created Middle Earth/Arda or the Western Shores/Valinor or any of the characters said to dwell in either place in the pages of "The Silmarillion," which I did not write. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote "The Silmarillion." Actions various characters are said to have taken on either side of the fictional sea in that book are mentioned here. I am extremely grateful to Tolkien and do not mean to disrespect him by letting my own imagination play in the land of fantasy he first put to page. I hope he does not mind in heaven.**

 **In the meantime, I make no money from this work I based on his own. I wrote and posted the chapter below in the hope of pleasing my fellow fans.**

He didn't wish to wake, not outside the Halls of Mandos. He knew he deserved them. He'd been a fool. He'd known it before the robed and hooded figure had spoken to them on the boats. He'd felt the guilt eating away at him, un-named and not fully acknowledged, since he'd first realized the only crime those on the boats before them had committed was guarding the work of their hands, as dear to them as his mentor's gems had been to him. He never should have begged that mind to teach his, nor let his teacher's kin near his own. He should have forged bars to keep all those he cared about on legs locked inside until the stolen ships had left their shores.

He should face the grim Valar of justice for all he'd done. He admired Mandos even more greatly now. "He" had known. "He" had not voted for releasing Melkor. If only his king had listened to him everything might have stayed the way it had been … before ... Now …

Now, he wanted to wake in the halls of Mandos. He wanted to be judged correctly and fully. He wanted to spend the rest of his endless existence in cold, dark, stone hallways far from others so they wouldn't be bothered by his misery or try to cheer him in it.

He didn't want to wake to see stars, the creations of the Valar King's beloved wife. He didn't want to wake to hear water, the music of the Valar King's dear friend. He did "not" want to wake to feel a breeze ... sent from the Valar King himself.

He wanted to go back to oblivion. It was the closest thing he'd get to happiness. But something was poured into his mouth, first chilling, then burning. Even those sensations only began to pull him back toward consciousness. As his flesh absorbed the drink, jolts of energy flashed through his body. His stomach awakened, clamped, and screamed in hunger immediately after.

More of a growl than a groan welled up inside him and then made it out. He curled up inside himself again. The effort did not work. Sensations reached him from outside even better after the drink

Pin-pricks of silver light cut through his eyelids. Gurgles of running water rushed into his ears. Wafts of chill breeze sank through his skin and then into his bones. He shivered.

A light weight fell upon his shoulder. Warmth poured from it into his skin and then into his bone. He opened one eye. Then he tried to push himself into the earth and away from what he saw.

The face above him must be Elbereth herself. Dark, empathetic eyes looked into his own. They were set in a shining, pale, oval face. Dark, straight hair fell from a straight brow to frame slightly curving cheeks.

He blinked and looked again. No … The eyes were tinged with a warm brown shade. The skin was cream not silver. The contours of the face were slightly off. This beauty was not quite as breath-taking. This was someone else.

He tried to rise. The hand on his shoulder pushed him down again, gently, but the grip felt firm. "Shhhhhhh … You're safe now."

"Safe? Why would you assume this is so?"

A laugh sounded from somewhere. The delicate brows of the face above him furrowed slightly as the eyes beneath them narrowed just as slightly. Pink lips tightened into a thinner line.

He tilted his own head back into the dirt to look beyond the top of his own head. Another elleth sat behind where his head lay. She leaned slightly away from instead of over him like the first elleth.

This second elleth's face was thinner and merrier. Her hair was a warm, red-brown. Her eyes, however, seemed the same dark-brown as the first's. She spoke to him. "We have made you much safer than you were earlier this night."

He frowned. His gaze darted between them. He had definitely never seen these two before. He could tell by their voices, Sindarin had been the first language they learned. However, they did not sound nor look like elves from Doriath or the occasional dark elf he'd run into living outside the girdle of Melian on these eastern shores. "Who are you? Where are you from?"

The first face he'd woken to turned to look back into his eyes. "We are green elves from Ossiriand."

"Oh. I see."

The second elleth spoke again. "Try not to be overwhelmed. After all, aren't we all descended from the same first group of kin to awaken in the east?"

The face above him frowned, raised its gaze, and shook its head at the cheeky voice once again beyond his line of sight. He was almost amused by the expression on the first face and how the green elleth's movement caused the curtain of her dark hair to bounce. He decided he would to speak to "her." "How did you find me?"

The elleth beside him sat up, looked away, and blushed. It was the cheeky voice who replied, "My Aunt searched the river for stones and then found you also."

Now the view was clear he stared up into the sky filled with stars. He clenched his jaw. He had tried to escape, but Manwe's close friend was just as cruel as he. He should have seen this coming. _If you can hear my thoughts as well as my words across the sea, Varda, tell your husband and his friend I thank them not for this._

But he only glanced in silence between the faces of the elleth near him. They seemed to have taken some trouble over him. And as far as he knew, they had committed no crime. Why should he punish them? Why should he let his curse come upon them?

"I regret telling you both, you have made a mistake."

The first elleth bent her head to stare down at him again with wide eyes. "Have we?"

"You should have nothing to do with me either of you. I am cursed."

The other elleth leaned over and stared down at him too, her face appearing upside down to his eyes. "Are you?"

He nodded. "I fell into the clutches of Morgoth. I escaped the enthrallment of his gaze whatever any might say, but he then turned me over to his favorite servant. When _he_ could not make me do as his master wished, he punished me and then set me to another task. While performing it, I escaped, but my own people will not take me in for fear of any spell our enemies might have cast upon me while I was with them."

"No wonder you are so starved."

He started and stared at the elleth staring back at him from his side. He noted she had not removed her hand from his shoulder. He next looked to upside down face above his. Her smooth brow, cheeks, and intent eyes showed no fear.

He raised an eyebrow at them both. "After all I have said that is all you have to say to me?"

The second elleth shrugged. "I too was a prisoner of some of our joint enemies, though they were not as powerful enemies as those who kept you. I also escaped. My kin have long guarded me from my once-captors. Besides, our home is not a place of great interest to them save for the fact I am there."

"I know not why you think yourself so important to them elleth, but I can assure you, you are not."

The second laughed. "Well then, you should feel all the safer in Ossiriand."

"I'm not going anywhere near your home. Have you not listened to anything I said?"

"We both listened to you."

He looked back to the first elleth now raising one eyebrow head held high, eyes cast down, but only to squarely meet his gaze. Her form and face seemed carved of stone, her moving lips barely ruined the illusion. "And we are not leaving you to die, nor letting you run off to do so."

"You are holding me prisoner?"

"If we must. Show us you will not run off to die, and we shall trust you not to do so."

The other elleth spoke again. "We tree-dwelling elves have a tendency to find creatures who have gone off to die and then poking them into living years longer."

There was a sound of scraping nearby. He turned his head that direction to look. Then he jerked away so hard, he slipped out from beneath the firm hold the first elleth had on his shoulder. He leapt to his feet and reached for his weapon. There was nothing there. He took a deep breath and a step back before planting his feet and reaching up and out to grapple with his hands.

His eyes fixed themselves on those of the orc. But … the orc's eyes were glazed-over. Its jaw hung open and slack. The scrambling noise was coming from behind it. Then another form appeared beside the orc's. A young ellon climbed over the cliff edge, past the orc head and shoulders, and then turned back to face them. He took ahold of the orc under the armpits and lifted it up with him before walking backwards just to drop it in the dirt at his own feet after several steps.

The older ellon lifted his gaze from the enemy in the dust to study this elven newcomer. The ellon was young, short, only slightly taller than the elleth seemed to be still kneeling on the ground. The youth's hair was an even brighter shade of brown than the second elleth's. When the younger ellon turned toward him, the noldo saw the color of this ellon's eyes nearly matched his hair. The newcomer smiled at him. "Ah. You're awake. Mae govannon …"

"Indeed." The first elleth stood and stepped up to take his left arm. She also smiled upon him. "We never did get around to saying that before. Mae govannon, dear guest."

The younger elleth stepped up to his other side and grabbed his other arm and smiled even more brightly up into his face. "Mae govannon."

He glanced between the two of them and then looked off into the darkness beyond the younger ellon's head. _What sort of elves has Manwe's mercy caused me to fall in with?_

. . .

"What sort indeed?"

Mellolaes frowned down at the one listening to her story and growled. "Oh, hush!"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	7. Chapter 7

**The world and situation is Tolkien's while all the characters, but Erestor and Melkor Morgoth are mine.**

 **I wrote and then posted this without any expectation of financial gain, but only the hope it will (eventually at least) uplift my audience.**

The first elleth leaned forward at his side. "Nephew … our guest is awake and alert now. While your sister and I feed him, why don't you gather your brothers and bring them here to meet him. The river should not flood and carry the orc's bodies away as you do."

"As you say, Aunt Sarnin." The younger ellon turned and stepped over the side of the cliff disappearing into the dark. Afterward, the older ellon could hear his voice bouncing off the cliff-walls shouting his aunt's news and instructions to the others. Three voices bounced back.

The other ellon flinched. Cheerful familiarity mixed with mild teasing and tense competition sounded in those voices. Their music struck a cord within him the vibrating of which in turn cut through a deep and raw place in his heart.

He felt the older elleth embrace him with one arm. Then she held up something before his face. He blinked at it.

The orb was about the size of a grape and the color of gold. A shadow of darker hue floated within it though. The younger elleth spoke from his other side. "It's a berry-centered honey-drop."

His stomach clenched and screamed within him, but he looked away. Then he turned more fully from both of them, pulling his arms out of their holds. If he did this, he'd be committing to days more on these shores barring further violence being committed against him of course.

"Not going to eat, are you?"

The older ellon looked back over his shoulder. This time a fairly tall ellon stood on the cliff edge looking at him. This one was not quite as tall as the Noldo himself used to be. However, in height this new ellon beat his aunt, brother, and sister by far. Yet, there was an even greater difference between him and the other members of this family the Noldo had met so far.

The Noldo felt an instinct telling him to step back from this Arda native. There was something in his grin. It was less horror inducing than orc leers full of blood-lust, far less paralyzing than Melkor's gaze filled with even worst, but … there was something … feral … in this ellon's smile. The Noldo had the impression this one would shed his blood if he gave him the slightest excuse.

The elleth on either side of the Noldo stiffened and glared at their kin.

"Brother" said one.

"Nephew" said the other.

"Don't scare him," they said together.

"Why? Can't he take a scare?"

The other ellon stepped nearer to the Noldo. In return, the Noldo stood as tall as his bent back and stooped shoulders would allow. He hardened his frame as well. He would not quake before this dark elf.

The other ellon's eyes narrowed. He titled his head and studied the Noldo. "Are you giving my aunt and sister trouble?"

The Noldo relaxed slightly and shrugged. "I am saving them trouble. I am cursed. I have no wish to spread such to them or to you."

The other ellon laughed. The sound was a dark and angry. Afterward, the fierce smile spread even farther over his face. A knife-edge-like gleam lit the ellon's eyes. "You have missed your chance. You cannot escape their love now. They've found you like a half-drowned forest creature washed up after a flood. They'll be lusterless and lax all the journey home if you die now. We'd rather have them active and alert. So, eat the honey-drop or I'll stuff it down your throat."

"My brother speaks harshly, but he is right."

The ellon from across the sea sneered at the ellon right in front of him. Then he stepped to the side to see around his figure and look in the direction of the cliff-edge. A third Silvan ellon stood there. He looked almost taller than the feral one.

This newest ellon's eyes reminded the Noldo of his own, or how they had once been. Their expression was serious, cautious, respectful. The Noldo felt like inclining his head, but refrained, and simply spoke respectfully instead. "I am merely trying to protect you all from the danger my presence among you will bring."

"Coward."

The Noldo looked back to the feral ellon. He was smirking at him. "Not going to fight for those who fought for your life. You'll just turn, run, and hide. Then you'll wait for your enemies to find you in some deep, dark hole and drag you out of it."

"I never asked any of you to give me anything."

"Yet we have given it anyway!"

The older elleth's voice startled him slightly. He turned toward her. Her sharp eyes softened slightly as they looked into his. "I believe I found you for a reason. Eat, and find out what it is."

He opened his mouth to reply. Then his gaze turned to the form lying silent and frozen on the ground between them and the cliff-edge. His mouth closed and twisted as he stared at it. Then he spoke. "Where did that orc corpse come from?"

"One of many we killed down in the canyon, after our aunt refused to surrender you to them."

The ellon close his eyes. He raised his face to the sky. Then he sighed. He turned back to the older elleth, took the tiny orb from her still open hand, and popped it into his mouth.

It melted there. The insides of his mouth soaked up the liquid of the outer shell and energy flooded through his veins like a released river after a thaw in the mountains. He glanced around. For better or worse he had thrown in his lot with these strange elves … for now.

. . .

"I am beginning to see a pattern in how you Silvan healers handle your patients."

Mellolaes paused in her story-telling to scowl at Erestor, and then continued in a harder voice for a time.

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	8. Chapter 8

**All the characters seen, except Erestor are mine. He, the world, and the greater situations in this story were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please read and enjoy.** **:)**

As the honey continued to melt in the Noldo's mouth, the older elleth began to speak. "Now, as you enjoy that introductions." She turned to the tall and "respectful" ellon of Arda. "This is the oldest child of my sister, born before the Valar found us. We call him Lastanann."

The ellon nodded. The Noldo's eyes widened as he returned the nod. This dark elf was far older than he himself.

The elleth then nodded to the disrespectful dark-elf. "And this is his oldest brother, born soon after the Vallar left us in the east when we refused to follow them into the west. We called him "Ranthalion."

The ellon gave a slow, cool nod while staring him down. The Noldo felt rankled at the thought this dark-elf might also be older than him.

The elleth then stood on her toes and called out "Melarbeth, come out of the shadows dear!"

The Noldo expected another elleth to step forth. Instead another ellon stepped into the light of the stars with a nod. His aunt continued. "This is my sister's fourth-born. He seemed her only child left after her only daughter was taken from us and her two elder sons went back into the east searching for their sister."

The Noldo studied this new ellon. He was shorter than his older brothers, but a little taller than the ellon who'd first dragged the orc-corpse over the cliff-edge. He was even more slender and far more silent than his brothers. the Noldo wondered if this "Melarbeth" could even talk at all. His name seemed to imply not.

The elleth continued to speak. "And this is my sister's fourth son "Manpalan" He was born soon after his sister and older brothers' return."

The shortest and seemingly youngest ellon, who'd first dragged up the orc-corpse bowed his head and seemed to blush. Before the Noldo was sure, though, the elder elleth called his attention away with more words. "And on your other side is my only niece, my sister's sweet girl-child once lost to us, but now returned to all her people. She is called "Lathwinn the Great."

. . .

Erestor's bored voice burst into the plot again. "Now I suppose we'll have a long recounting of her deeds."

Mellolaes' brows drew together before one rose slightly. "As a matter of fact, 'wise-one' …"

. . .

The Noldo froze. Then he blinked. He stepped away from both elleth while continuing to stare and then blinked at the younger elleth again. She stared back as he spoke. "I 'have' heard of you dark-elleth. Those from Doriath spoke of you once or twice, as did even the few dark elves I have met living outside Melian's girdle on these shores, but I mostly heard your name from the lips of orcs … They speak of you even now, more often than either Thingol or Melian herself."

The somber expression on the elleth's face did not change as she listened while meeting his gaze, but Ranthalion's brows drew together as he replied, "She is well protected."

Lathwinn's lips slowly drew up into a smile and then she replied as well with a nod. "And so, will you be also, Noldo." She stepped toward him, reached out, and squeezed his arm.

The Noldo raised a single eyebrow at her. "At least I can make you and your brothers' enmity with orcs no worse."

"And what can we call you sour-mouth?"

The Noldo's gaze turned sharp as it flicked to Ranthalion, but he replied, "Call me whatever you wish."

"Celuant."

The Noldo turned to the elleth at his left. The ancient elleth smiled at him. He blinked at her for he had no words. Someone else spoke for him.

"River-gift?"

The Noldo turned to see Lastannan looking at his aunt speculatively.

Ranthalion added "Shouldn't we get to know him better first?"

The elleth's tone and gaze turned hard as she straightened her back and raised her chin. "From this point on, all of you can call him whatever you wish. He has given you permission to do so. "But I shall forever call him 'Celuant.'"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	9. Chapter 9

**All the characters seen, except Erestor, are mine. He, the world, and the greater situations in this story were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please just read and enjoy. :)**

"Fine then, he is 'Celuant' to me as well. If it is a good enough name for our guest in your eyes, dear aunt, tis a good enough name for him in mine also." The eldest ellon smiled obligingly at the eldest elleth.

Ranthalion snorted at his elder brother's side. Lathwinn stepped up to her second brother's opposite side and gave him a punch in the arm. The Noldo, "Celuant," raised an eyebrow.

The youngest ellon turned to his aunt. "Now that introductions are over, and our guest is named, shall we return to our …" Manpalan turned to the form still lying, nearby, in the dust and made a face, "our former task?"

The eldest elleth nodded to him, "Yes dear nephew, you may."

He sighed. "Thank you, dear aunt."

He went to his burden picked it up by its wrists and dragged it along the edge of the cliff away from the group. Both of his middle brothers turned back to the ledge and climbed down it. The eldest, however, watched his youngest brother work.

"Do you always watch over your younger siblings so?"

Lastannan turned his gaze to "Celuant" and shrugged with a smile. "I suppose I do at that."

"Have you ever regretted it?"

Lastannan narrowed his eyes at the stranger. Then he drew himself up, looking to his youngest brother now watching him. The elder brother next peered over the edge at the two middle brothers he saw were also staring up at him. Ranthalion was grinning.

Lastannan looked up again to stare at nothing as he thought. They were all listening it seemed. That changed things.

He turned a grin upon the stranger. "Sometimes …"

The other Green ellon and two green elleth made expressed outrage in teasing tones as he'd known they would. After chuckling at them, Lastannan turned his attention back to his youngest brother as he worked.

Their guest shut his eyes against it all. He cursed himself for even asking. Inside, something roiled up and he trembled.

Sarnin put out a hand on his shoulder. His trembling ceased. Then she pressed something into his hand. He clasped it in curiosity and then rolled it about his palm. He smiled gently. Another honey-covered berry it seemed.

Actually, the second edible-orb turned out to be honey-covered nut-meat. After he finished it, the elleth gave him a whole bag of nut-meat bits to devour. They waited until he'd wet his appetite on the sweet to give him the plain it seemed, the sneaks.

As Celaunt ate the other ellon continued to drag orc corpses up over the ledge into the canyon and then throw them onto each other into a stack some paces from where he and the elleth watched. The Noldo raised his chin to gesture toward the heap. "Why are they doing that?"

The elleth glanced at each other before looking back at him. "To get them out and away from the river in case it floods. We do not want them poisoning its waters."

"They could have taken care of the problem in the canyon itself."

Sarnin perked up her ears and sat up. "Oh, how?"

"By …" The ellon stopped, shut his eyes, and shuddered. Then he continued in a softer voice, "How are they planning on taking care of them over there where they stack them now?"

The two elleth glanced at each other again wide-eyed. They looked as though the ellon was speaking out of delirium. Then they looked back at him with some pity in their gazes. Sarnin answered again. "They will make a cairn of rocks over them. In the canyon, such a structure might wash away with the bodies in a strong enough flood."

The ellon's eyes flew open. He turned his gaze upon both elleth. "You mean they will not …" He opened his mouth to form the word. It seemed to stick in his throat. He closed his mouth again, swallowed, and looked down at the ground.

Lathwinn tilted her head at him. Her gaze fixed itself upon the shut eye turned to her and then the cheek beneath it still vaguely shining and red in the dim light. A glint of understanding lit her own eyes.

She reached out a hand and laid it on his knee. He flinched away, but made himself be still as she spoke to him. "I once had friends who fashioned things, gleaming, sparkling things, like you Noldos do. Every one in a while one of them would have an accident doing so, particularly the younger ones. Such mistakes would sometimes leave scars on their skin, somewhat like your own."

The Noldo's brow furrowed. He continued to keep his eyes shut and facing the ground. Lathwinn smiled slightly and continued. "When these friends of mine hunted anything … they got rid of whatever they did not want by burning it up. That is what your people do with orc bodies after their battles with them, isn't it?"

The Noldo sighed. "Their bodies ... and sometimes also things we should not have destroyed."

Lathwinn smiled a little wider, yet also a little more sadly. Then she patted his knee. "We never do that ourselves."

The Noldo's eyes snapped open. He finally turned his gaze fully upon her. "You don't?"

Sarnin laughed aloud. Her eyes sparkled in the starlight. "We are Green Elves. We never burn things!"

The Noldo opened his mouth, but Ranthalion, having just climbed out of the canyon, spoke first. "Of course, we never make a fire, you fool. Why would we risk our growing things and very lives that way?"

Celuant scowled back at him, but as a smooth hand took his own and clasped it his gaze softened again. He looked up to loon into Sarnin's warm, but not fiery eyes. "You need not fear fire when you are with us Celuant."

Lathwinn spoke gently at her aunt's side. "Unless there is a storm of course. Then we usually know where the lightning will strike and avoid the place chasing animals away from the area too. We are usually long gone before any flames actually appear. And they often burn not long where the ground is so wet and the growing things so lush."

The Noldo swallowed. Then he gave another jerk of a head-nod, before muttering. "Thank you." In his thoughts he added, _perhaps living among green elves will not be so bad after all …_

. . .

"Except in winter."

"Erestor!" Mellolaes shouted standing up. "If you do not stop interrupting I'm going to pour this remaining tea over your head!"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	10. Chapter 10

**Elrond, Erestor, Lindir and Middle Earth are not mine, and I'm so grateful to Mr. Tolkien for first writing about them. :) Mellolaes is my OC, however.**

 **This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained. :)**

"Erestor! If you do not stop interrupting, I am going to pour this remaining tea over your head!"

Elrond paused in the hallway. His eyes swiveled to the left. He cautiously reached out to the door, turned its nob, and pushed it open.

Mellolaes' head rotated so she could glare at him. The rest of her form remained bent over Erestor's. The Steward's eyes stared listlessly into his Lord's from a silk pillow. Elrond entered the room and shut the door behind him before lifting an eyebrow at them both. "Have we a problem in here, my servants?"

Erestor spoke first. His voice was as flat as the expression of his face. "I am merely being warned to cease breaking my word, my Lord."

Elrond lifted his eyebrow higher. "Your word to do what?"

Mellolaes interrupted her glare growing darker. "Where is Estel?"

Elrond's back straightened as both his brows shot up his forehead. Sometimes, he was convinced, like his elder sons, the nurse of his youngest had forgotten who the boy's kin were and who was only his nurse. "I left him with his brothers …"

As both his servants opened their mouths, Elrond raised his hand holding it palm out toward them. "And Cuilbron. Elladan was silly enough to cut himself. I'm giving Estel the opportunity to practice his healer skills upon his big brother."

Though her brows remained furrowed in irritation, Mellolaes gave a low giggle. "That's what my mother used to do with me and my twin cousins." She then turned a softer glare back upon his Steward.

Elrond flicked his gaze between them and asked again, "Why are you both so angry with each other?"

"Mellolaes has been trying to cheer me, and I have been uncheerable."

"Oh no …" Elrond kept his face mostly smooth, but a corner of his mouth quirked up and a flash of light entered his dark eyes."You are not testing the Silvan stubbornness are you?"

Mellolaes straightened, lifted her face to the sky, and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. Erestor's reply made her gaze jerk back down to the ellon's face. "On the contrary, she has been succeeding far more than I thought she would."

Mellolaes turned blinking eyes upon him. "I have?"

Elrond imitated her expression at his steward. "She has?"

Erestor shrugged. "I have been lying here long, in silence good for little more than paperwork, most of which I finished before my injury. For a short time now, I have been listening to a tale I have never heard before. After re-hearing and re-writing so many, not forseeing what comes next, even if I can guess the majority of it, is rather amusing."

Mellolaes rolled her eyes at the ceiling again, this time placing her hands on her hips. Elrond gazed worriedly at her. "I think, my Steward, if you wish the elleth to continue this tale for you, you will have to compliment it more than that."

"You know I give neither compliments nor complaints save in sincerity, my Lord."

Mellolaes looked down at Erestor again her brows furrowing and eyes sparkling like a knife once more. Elrond's eyebrows rose yet again. "Perhaps I should stay and hear it too …I think Estel far safer with my current chief healer and his brothers than you will be here if I leave."

Mellolaes raised a hand and flicked her fingers at the ellon standing near the door. "Nonsense. I am capable of containing my temper long enough to finish this part of the tale at least. The hour Erestor was going to allow me to speak must be over or nearly so already. Besides, I think he needs to sleep."

"I do not need to sleep now."

Mellolaes turned to Lord Elrond arms crossed over her chest. A superior smile graced her face. Lord Elrond looked back to his steward to see him glaring from his pillow. Elrond glanced back and forth between them once more and then nodded. "Alright then, I will leave you two to the conclusion of your bargain as it seems you both have made one."

Out in the hallway, Lord Elrond stopped a passing servant and sent them for his door-elf. Once Lindir arrived, he took him slightly aside from Erestor's closed door and whispered in his ear. "I do not think with all the thick snow outside we shall be getting any visitors. Stay here. If any shouts or feelings of distress emerge from my steward's bedroom, enter and do as you see fit. I have to go to my yougest and spend time with him until his nurse, hopefully, emerges in good enough condition physically and emotionally to play with him."

 **I hope you enjoyed this, please tell me if you did or have constructive criticism to give me.**

 **God Bless and keep you :)**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	11. Chapter 11

**All the characters seen, except Erestor, are mine. He, the world, and the greater situations in this story were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please simply read and enjoy. :)**

Mellolaes settled back onto the stool beside her patient's bed. Once there, she took a moment to spread her skirt and calm her nerves. Erestor watched intently.

"So … am I to be doused in lukewarm tea?"

Mellolaes raised her head and stared at him with hard eyes, a raised eyebrow, and a twitching corner of her mouth. "Not if you behave yourself."

"You will then continue your tale?"

"Until you fall asleep."

"I have no plan to sleep today. How can I be tired when I am doing nothing?"

Mellolaes gave him a smug smile and went on with her story.

. . .

The ellon continued to stack bodies until they had finished that part of their task. Then they began stacking stones up around the corpses. At this point, the elf from Valinor took interest in their project.

He spoke up soon after they started to build their cairn. "Use not only the biggest, but the rocks with the flattest sides as you start, even if they be not as large, especially when forming the bottom layer."

Ranthalion straightened from where he stooped over a stone and glared at the patient of his kin. "And what makes you such an expert on stone-stacking you stranger to these shores?"

Lathwinn straightened where she sat and blinked at her brother. "Ranthalion! He is a Noldo!"

Her brother's nostrils flared. He glanced first at his sister and then back to the stranger. Then his aunt's voice entered his ears like a light, summer breeze. "I believe Celuant is right, dear nephew. Neither you nor the others shall be harmed following his advice will you? Just try it and see how things work out."

Lastannan nodded behind his closest brother having already paused in his work to stand, turn, and listen. "We shall indeed take the advice of our aunt. Even if the advice of a stranger might prove false, we have long trusted her without learning to do otherwise."

Lastannan's stare then riveted upon the back of his eldest brother's skull. His voice deepened and hardened slightly, though it kept a jovial rhythm. "Is this not true, brother?"

Ranthalion turned his glare back upon his only older brother and sniffed. Then he turned his gaze downward to search for stones with flat bottoms. He and the others were soon using them to form the foundation of their structure. The growing wall did seem more stable than they'd expected.

Manpalan commented on this. The remark earned him a glare from his second-eldest brother, but his very eldest grinned at him.

Sarnin watched all this with a soft smile of her own. This fell away as she turned a concerned stare upon her patient. Celuant also watching her nephews, his gaze remained hard if also intrigued. His posture continued to be as stiff as when he'd first awakened.

Sarnin reached out and laid a hand upon his knee, giving it a squeeze. Her whisper was soft as seed-down. "Why don't you get some sleep, Celuant? We will be starting our journey home soon after dawn arrives to keep any more orcs from interfering in it."

Celuant turned his hard, but intrigued gaze to her and raised an eyebrow. "Home?"

Sarnin gave a sad smile and placed her free palm over her heart. "'Our home.' She then raised and placed that same hand on his shoulder giving it a squeeze and him a warmer smile. "And, hopefully, yours too, soon."

The stranger grunted, but continued their conversation on a different track. "Do you think I will be tired after the run rises if I engage in no sleep before? I have been unconscious much of the past day and at least a little of this night."

Lathwinn had been standing and watching her brothers as they worked, sometimes looking out beyond them into the darkness surrounding them. Now, she turned a scowl upon their guest. "'I' believe you need sleep also, my aunt's patient. There is a vast difference between avoiding the world by burying one's conscious away from it and resting both your mind and body. You have obviously been through much to rest from."

The stranger looked away from Lathwinn's gaze. His jaw clenched and tightened. Sarnin merely widened her soft smile behind him. "At least lie down and try to show us you cannot possible rest as we believe. I will sing a song to relax us all and keep away the dark servants of Morgoth who wish us harm while you do so."

With a deep sigh, the Noldo laid down and turned over keeping his back to the elleth. He thought to himself, he might as well not put their group in greater danger or undue stress by arguing over laying down if that is what they wanted, or over their singing a song.

Sarnin looked up at the stars shining down upon them. Her eyes grew wet. Yet, the widest grin she had worn that night played over her lips as she began.

"Through foulness and darkness, I have come

From the grips of strong foes and embraces of fellows

Fears and joys, hopes and horrors I have known

Yet here I stand at last, I have found my way home

Through mountains, storms, and depths The Song led without fail.

Now watch me dance and hear me sing let joy throughout our whole woods ring.

Come now my kin to my arms, see me, greet me, and hear all my tales

I have found my way back at last; yes, the darkness has failed"

Celuant smiled grimly his face still turned away from hers. If only the words were true. However, he'd learned even if you escaped it, the darkness still had a way of winning especially when it came to your kin.

Lathwinn laughed. Then she picked up the song herself adding her own voice to the melody. Sarnin turned a smile upon her niece as they sang together, though Lathwinn now truly took the lead.

"I've wandered through halls encrusted with gems

And over mountain's silver tops exposed to the sky

I've seen the smiles of kings and glares of grim guardians

Wondered valleys deep with shadow and almost lost myself in them

Lathwinn's brothers stopped their work and turned toward her. They watched their sister sing in silence and stillness. Their eyes grew grave. She seemed to hardly notice. For, she now spun on tip-toe a moment before continuing her song. Their aunt did notice the brothers' changed behavior. Tears poured from her eyes as she continued the song with their sister.

I've inhaled the breath of bears and listened long to their rippling growls

Eagles' screams echoed above as their shadows engulfed me in deep vales

Trees whispered to one other as I wandered long beneath their boughs

And after all this journeying, I have found my way home now."

Lathwinn's four brothers stepped away from their work. The youngest grinned wide. His bright voice joined those of the elleth. Two tears gleamed upon Melarbeth's cheeks as his softer voice blended into the melody. His second eldest brother's face was softer than the stranger among them had ever seen it before. As Ranthalion raised his voice, it came forth a bit broken. Tears also rushed from his eyes, but his chin was raised defiantly toward the east. The eldest brother's gaze looked the same direction but his eyes held only gratitude as he sang the next lines of the song with his ancient voice.

"Come everyone and see this face we thought long lost to us, gaze upon it again

She has returned to us dear friends and she is still one of us even though changed

Taller is Lathwinn now, though not tall, older is she now, yet though wiser, still she grins

Know her once more, dear friends, love this stranger who is also and forever our kin

The family fell silent. They looked at each other in love a long moment. Then they turned their stares upon their guest. They smiled to see him breathing deeply with closed eyes.

. . .

Mellolaes smiled dreamily at the ceiling and sighed. Then she looked down. Her face crinkled in places as she grinned. Her patient also stared at the ceiling in silence, but his deep breathing without a wince or crease of his face and lack of reaction to the pause in her words told her something.

The nurse bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. Then she rose, pressed a light kiss to her patient's forehead, and stepped silently out the door before closing it only slightly less silently behind her.

Estel's nurse smirked to herself in the hall still crouched over the doorknob. Then she straightened, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and turned. She strode, head high, in the direction of her charge to tell him of their victory. Behind her, Lindir stepped silently out through an open doorway further down the hall wearing an amused grin of his own.

 **Reviews are most appreciated and often responded to.** **:)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	12. Chapter 12

**I do not own Glorfindel, Elladan, Elrohir, their father Elrond, or his father, Erestor, the Hidden Valley, Green Wood the Great, or even Middle Earth. Tolkien created all these characters and I'm so grateful to him for doing so. :)**

Glorfindel returned from another walk around the snow-filled valley well after sunset. It was always the winter that made him nervous. It reminded him of the north and how hungry evil got in the dark crevices once the freezing wind cut through their coats and tough skin. The chill would then sink into their bones ill-covered in thin flesh. The enemy had fed his servants poorly on purpose. He knew it made them hungrier, fiercer, even more blood-thirsty.

Even though the Hidden Valley was far from pockets of darkness dwellers left-over from those days, he patrolled during the winter. After all, he had thought Gondolin well-protected once.

Glorfindel entered the kitchens to get a warm drink and found two of his lieutenants huddled over their own goblets of spiced-wine. The pair chortled and smiled over their cups' silver rims. The older ellon gave them a fond smile as he made himself a cup of tea. "What are you two, young miscreants plotting this time?"

Elladan lifted his eyebrows at his elder. "Are you still calling us that even after the fight we gave you the other day?"

"Ah yes, you two did put up quite good a fight together until you slid in the snow, my Lord's elder son."

Elladan sank lower in his chair. He frowned as he lifted his goblet toward his lips and then muttered behind it, "You melted that snow under your own foot before causing me to step in it."

The other lieutenant turned to his twin again. "Another, less-friendly opponent may use the same tactic upon us someday brother. And I hope you learn how to defeat it quickly, for you left me wide open when you disappeared before my eyes."

"I popped right back up."

"After, I was tapped 'dead' as I looked down upon your silly head."

"Which was your own fault, Elrohir, for being distracted by his mistake. Now, answer my question and tell me what mischief you two have afoot unless, of course, it is against me." Glorfindel turned fully toward them while lifting his cup of tea.

Elrohir smiled back at him. "'We' weren't plotting anything this time, Balrog Slayer."

'We were discussing the far finer mischief already wrought and not-yet discovered."

Glorfindel lowered his cup without taking a sip, and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And whose mischief are you refusing to reveal and thus spoil?"

"It's not like 'that' this time Glorfindel."

"'This' time father would kill us 'for' interfering."

"I see." Glorfindel took a quick sip while staring at them.

"My brother is being over-dramatic," Elladan added. His brother sent him a scowl. Glorfindel chuckled after swallowing his tea. Usually, it was Elladan who waxed eloquent and long while telling tales with his younger brother rolling his eyes and giving practical and brief details behind his elder brother's back. This time proved no different, except it was Elladan staring from behind his brother at him.

"What he means," Elrohir continued "is a bit of 'kindly' mischief was done today. Mellolaes told Erestor a story, and put him to sleep this afternoon ..."

"And he has yet to wake up."

Glorfindel's grin widened. "Oh?"

"Indeed."

"And father has forbidden anyone from waking him til he does so on his own. He's had a hard time sleeping since his accident. As you know. So he's likely been tireder than he's let on. He's even told father he couldn't possibly get sleepy just lying around all day, but Mellolaes put him to sleep."

"And we were discussing what he'll have to say when he does wake."

Glorfindel smiled while pouring himself more tea. He'd been taking throughout the short story. The Balrog Slayer smiled to himself over the rising steam from the kettle. So, his friend was finally getting some rest. This was a blessing indeed. And she'd told him a story. He almost chuckled to himself. How had she talked the stuffy Noldo into that? "What was this story that caused our steward to slumber by its end?"

"Oh, I don't think it's ended, but there are bets going on about whether or not she'll be called in by him to finish it."

"I'm betting she does."

Elrohir turned a disapproving look upon his brother. "Only because the more careful gamblers are so far betting against it."

"I can afford to lose the money, but imagine how much gold I'll gain if I win."

Elladan grinned while lifting his goblet to his lips. Elrohir shook his head. Glorfindel smiled at them and asked, "Again, what is this tale about you have bet over Elladan?"

"It's one mostly about her own people, I believe. Lathwinn the Great is in it of course."

"Oh course," Glorfindel's golden head nodded over his tea. Their queen was always included in the Silvan's stories.

"But Mellolaes is spicing it up and hooking Erestor's interest by adding in one of your own people, Glorfindel, one who emerged from Morgoth's mines and joined her folk long before our grandfather sailed west."

Glorfindel looked up at the twins his eyes widening. Their own widened as they watched. "Glorfindel, your cup is overflowing!"

The Balrog Slayer looked down and found the beverage was washing away the last bit of melting snow from the toe of his boot. He lifted the kettle-spout and swallowed. There hadn't been a sip of tea in his mouth. "She's … telling him a story of a Noldo escaped from Morgoth's mines?"

"Yes …"

"Why does that bother you so much, Glorfindel?"

The Balrog Slayer's mouth hardened into a thin line. Of course, they wouldn't understand. The twins were born after, long after. Even Elrond wouldn't know. He and his own twin weren't privy to the information either. But he knew. And he hadn't been here to notice or interfere if it had been necessary. But perhaps it wasn't. If he'd fallen asleep. Perhaps he only pretended to sleep though ...

"I'm going to check on my old friend in his slumber."

Glorfindel placed the cup of tea on the table and turned toward the stairs. The twins turned their heads to gaze after him in wonderment. "Be careful Glorfindel," Elladan called. "Father was very clear about what would happen to the elf who wakes him!"

. . .

He opened the door and gazed in. His face gentled at the sight he saw. The ancient ellon did indeed sleep. His face was soft and lax in the silver light from the window. All was well.

Glorfindel's face grew serious again at his next thought. What would the elleth's story ultimately do, though? Was his friend living in a land of fantasy through her tale or … could he really have healed so much from his own grief after all this time to not mind hearing this tale of one who had survived what his friend had not?

The ellon turned before gently and silently closing the door behind him. He would hope the latter was true, but to make sure, he'd join them next time to see for himself. He had to protect the elleth and his friend from one another this time.

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to. :)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	13. Chapter 13

**All the characters seen, except Erestor, are mine. He, the world, and the greater situations in this story were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please just read and enjoy. :)**

The elleth smirked widely as she walked to the door. She opened it and sent a coy look to the face frowning from its pillow. The ellon spoke with a sour look. "You have come."

Mellolaes bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. "I have. Did you want me?"

"You have left a task unfinished, elleth."

The Silvan's eyes widened innocently, but her mouth kept twitching into a smile. "Did I?"

"Yes. Now that you've begun it, you will finish your story, or I'll report you to Lord Elrond for leaving a task unfinished, something neither of us appreciates in a servant. And, besides, it is a habit unworthy of you."

Mellolaes chortled as she sat upon the stool near the head of her patient's bed. Then continued her story with a wide grin.

. . .

Celuant awoke to the sound of Silvan words. Thus far, his new comrades had been speaking Sindar around him. Now, they spoke softly in a tongue he hadn't bothered to learn. It was close enough to Sindar, and even Noldor, for him to identify many of the words. Still, he realized he'd have been able to understand more of the words if he'd bothered trying to learn the language since reaching these shores.

He'd never thought he'd go far enough south to run into the people of the Singing Woods. He'd stayed near the enemy's fortress the foe there if possible. He'd thought somehow running into a green elf would still cause him no problems since they all knew Sindar. So, here he was now.

Perhaps he'd be accompanying this group home. If so, there would be even more conversations in his near-future to overhear, but only partially understand.

Of course, he hadn't firmly decided yet. Would he truly accompany them to the Singing Woods? Would he really put himself into their hands? How much more wrath from the enemy of all would they face if that one's servants found him, his escaped prey, with them?

Despite the courage and kindness, they'd already displayed to him, Celuant felt a squirm of irritation in his gut. They were having a private conversation without him, and about him. He'd recognized his new name in their words. His being left out of this conversation about himself was intentional. They were having it some strides from where he lay. This was how they invited him to join them?

He rose to his feet and walked to the group sitting cross-legged on the ground. He noted they'd picked a place upwind of the pile of rocks nearby. As he neared it himself, he noticed a definite, discomforting scent. The heat of the sun, which would have kept the orcs at bay when they were alive, now made their forms more offensive to one's senses.

Celuant glanced up at the bright sphere in the sky. How high it was. How long he must have slept. They had been right about his weariness. This made him feel no happier as he approached them all.

The Noldo stopped just outside the ring of Green-garbed elves and crossed his arms. They hadn't bothered to fall silent at his approach. Lathwinn finally shut her mouth after meeting his gaze over the head of one of her brothers. The others quieted and turned their heads slightly or greatly as needed to look up at him. He frowned down upon them. "What were you speaking of, you hoped I would not hear or understand?"

Lathwinn tilted her head to the side and then replied. "We thought it for your own good. You had obviously exhausted your strength over the last few days."

Celuant kept his arms crossed, but he sank down to sit cross legged just a little behind the space between two of her brothers. "I was under the impression you wanted me to join you and your kin. Yet, I am being left out of a joint discussion between you and they?"

The elleth gave him healer's stares. Lathwinn's older brothers sat on either side of their sister and aunt. The eldest, sitting at Sarnin's side, frowned back at Celuant. The second-eldest glared at the Noldo from his sister's right hand. "We were just discussing balancing your good with that of our people."

Celuant kept his expression and tone neutral at the sound of these words, but his were softer. "You mean balancing protecting me with shielding your own people from our joint enemy."

"No."

The Noldo's frown deepened. He turned his attention to the oldest ellon there. Lastannan looked grim, but not as hostile as his brother. The ancient ellon spoke low, but evenly, almost kindly to the Noldo. "Last night, my sister noted the presence of a warg in the distance. Likely, the scent of the dead orcs gathered together, where the winds play, drew him here."

The next eldest ellon cut into his brother's speech "Lathwinn thinks it is a very big warg."

Their sister seemed to sigh silently, but gave a nod.

The Noldo let his voice take on a bored tone. "I imagine I've seen bigger."

Lathwinn looked up and met his gaze. "No doubt, but this one presents a dilemma to us … and to you."

"Does it?"

The second eldest Green ellon sneered at him. "Has it not occurred to you, the warg could be a danger to our people if allowed to wonder, especially after digging up and feasting on a pile of orc-corpses? He could become incredibly strong after such a feast!"

The Noldo tried to look unimpressed, but he understood their worry. He and his brothers would have attempted to kill any such enemy that neared their fort. And these folks were without walls, without armor, without swords. And he had been taken captive despite armor, swords, and walls to return to at the end of his patrol. The ellon rubbed his scars as he mused for a moment, then asked, "What do you normally do under such circumstances?"

"We wait the beast out, hiding until he shows himself, and then shoot from cover, so he dies without knowing why."

The Noldo's head jerked up. His eyebrows rose. This seemed a sneaky, cowardly, and dishonorable strategy to him. Orcs had caught him in such a trap. But … what else had these elves, but cloaks of green and loosed arrows? They had no fortresses, no fi … no forg …

The ellon ceased pressing those lines of thought and shivered. He could not even think the names of nor form the images of those ... "things" anymore. What a useless ellon he'd become. His enemy had found the perfect punishment for him indeed.

His mind was snapped out of these musings by Sarnin's voice. "We have you with us now. And we do not know if you are capable of surviving such a delay in our return journey."

Celuant opened his eyes wide, raised his head, and blinked. "You mean … you worry for 'my' health. Enough to leave quarry un-hunted?"

He stared at them. Most looked back with firm and unapologetic faces. Ranthalion's face was a snarl. His arms remained crossed over his chest.

The Noldo's brows lowered fully as he next asked, "What is it, exactly, you fear?"

"We had no idea we'd find you," Lathwinn began. "We brought food for ourselves and a little extra in case of delays …"

"But you need to regain much flesh," Sarnin finished. "And probably need special food to fully recover your strength."

Celuant looked away. His frown fully twisted his mouth. "Make no special plans for me. You have done more than enough already."

"That hardly seems fair," the second youngest and seemingly quietest of the green elves broke in. "You are starving and have been through much already. Some of us can escort you home while the others stay to hunt this new prey as I've already suggested." He looked pointedly at his second-eldest brother.

Ranthalion turned and glared back. "That will divide our numbers and leave him and those who go with him more vulnerable, as 'I've' already stated!"

Melarbeth seemed unafraid as he met his brother's gaze. "They will not be so very vulnerable especially if Lathwinn is one of them, which would be perfect. For, she is an excellent healer as well as the best lookout and finest huntress among our people."

"Which is why she should stay here to help slay the beast!"

"Then 'I' will go with him and aunt Sarnin instead."

The older brother raised his voice. "You have the least traveling and hunting experience here save for him and Manpalan!"

Their youngest brother scowled at them both. "Hey!"

Manppalan's two brothers ignored him and kept staring at each other instead. As his older brother glared at him, Melarbeth continued their argument with a shrug. "One of us needs to get our guest home."

"I assure you I've been starved far longer than I will be on the journey to your home before. I can also survive an added day while you wait to hunt this warg together."

Both elleth turned their stares from the arguing brothers to the Noldo and raised an eyebrow each. Even the green ellon stared at him skeptically Ranthalion's face slightly flushed and eyes squinted, Melarbeth's brows raised, but showing little expression otherwise. Lastannan's gaze was intense, and arms folded, but his posture seemed relaxed unlike his youngest brother who after looking to their guest searched the faces of his elder kin eyes dating about like a minnow's lithe form.

Celuant looked blandly back at them all. "What might this creature do to you and your people if you do not kill it?"

Lathwinn turned and looked her oldest brother in the face. He looked back at her. Their aunt bowed her head between them as their gazes met over her head. After a moment, they both looked back at Celuant. Lathwinn's eyes crinkled at their corners with concern. "The escaped or released servants of Morgoth don't 'usually' enter our woods. We are many and the land is too rich and bright for them to feel easy there."

"But sometimes," her oldest brother continued, "the plentiful prey draws them in, particularly on nights when the moon and stars are obscured by clouds. The boldest, strongest, and biggest are then particularly prone to approaching our borders."

"And," Lathwinn continued "the creatures who wonder out of our woods and into the canyons, whether they are after clearer, colder water or they are chased out by stronger neighbors are particularly prone to getting eaten or ravaged by Morgoth's escaped or released servants then …"

"Which, in turn only makes the monsters more likely to enter the actual woods after more such prey …" her oldest brother finished.

Celuant nodded. "Yet, you argue about staying to hunt this warg."

Sarnin's head shot up. She scowled at him. "We think of you. You are weak … for now, but you could be made strong again. You could help us hunt other prey later be far more help to us, our people, and our animals and trees then than you possibly can be dead instead."

Celuant shrugged. "I am of little consequence in such matters without my weapons of choice."

Lathwinn sat up straighter and stared hard at him. "That's not true! You can learn to fight with other weapons. I have. We all have! None of us were born with a bow or knife in our hands."

Three out of her four brothers nodded calmly. Ranthalion looked away with a grimace as if reluctant to admit this. Celuant swept his gaze across their faces. Then he shrugged. "One day means nothing to me. I have searched long and hard in dark tunnels for far longer than I will have been without food by tomorrow night and tomorrow's dawn. Do what you will."

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to. :)**

 **God bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	14. Chapter 14

**All characters seen in this chapter were first written about by me. The world and greater situations were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien to whom I am truly grateful.**

 **This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.**

The darkness was nearly complete in the canyon. Upon the ledge, though, the stars shone bright. The warg growled at the light bathing the stones, but its nostrils twitched. The stench of death also covered the area. Far too long a time had passed since he'd had a meal. With that much meat inside him, he could become powerful, very powerful.

He leapt from one ledge, to another, to another. Once he stood upon the last, his nostrils twitched again. He pressed his nose to the cliff-edge. The scent of elves emanated from it as well. Elves had been here not long ago. Dare he go on?

. . .

Lathwinn stared from the shadow she had made her hiding place. Their guest, Celuant, stood a few steps behind her. He gazed over her shoulder at the cairn of rocks. He almost started when the warg leapt atop it.

The beast stood upon the heap of stones Celuant had advised these other elves in the building of. The Noldo's eyes were drawn to Lathwinn as she soundlessly drew an arrow from her quiver and set it against the string. They watched as the warg sniffed the air seeming to stare right at them. Then it dropped it's head and began to examine the stone-pile.

Lathwinn raised her bow. She aimed the arrowhead at the place above the beast's lowered muzzle and between its squinted eyes. She pulled back on the string. She stared. The starlight illuminated each individual hair covering the concave of the skull's soft spot.

The elleth grimaced. She tried not to breathe. She dared not release the sigh she was feeling.

Celuant smiled. He felt something bubble up from within in him, pleasure. Exultation sang from his spirit. The warg raised its head. He growled just after Lathwinn loosed her arrow.

The elleth gasped. The arrow-point landed in the beast's left nostril. The warg leapt back behind the rock-pile. He was out of sight, his strangled yelp bounced off the canyon walls.

Celuant knew from experience that meant the warg was keeping its head down. Its windpipe was curved, not straight. Straightening it would mean exposing its throat to the air. This beast was smart, experienced, and it could have been dead by now …

Lathwinn put another arrow to her string. Her mouth pursed into a tight line. Her wide-open eyes scanned the darkness. Celuant stood frozen behind her. The warg's labored breathing told them exactly where he was, behind the rock-pile, which blocked their view of it.

The creature growled and whined. The two blended together as they changed into each other. The sounds were also distorted and muffled as they bounced off the stone structure the beast had flattened itself against. Lathwinn stared in their direction, but did not pull back her bowstring.

A form sprang off a nearby ledge and into the starlight. It rose to its full stature standing tall on the same plain of stone the cairn stood upon. Celuant blinked at it. Lathwinn jerked upright and stared. She pulled back on the string and aimed it at the air just in front of the form.

The warg darted from its hiding place. The beast rushed the figure standing in the light. Lathwinn turned and followed the warg's progress, but she did not release her bolt. Even Celuant could see the archer did not have a clear shot of any of the beast's soft places. Neither its head nor its chest, but only its left side was turned toward her.

Another, equally tall figure sprang from its own hiding place and landed on the same surface the first figure and warg stood on. It then shouted from behind the warg. The beast slid to a stop. Then it huddled against the ground growling and dripping blood. Lathwinn took two steps to the side on her own ledge, raised her bow, and shook her head. "The angle is still not right."

The warg's eyes turned slightly toward her. Then it turned back and charged the first tall figure to appear. The other raised its bow and shot an arrow into the beast's back leg. The monster slid to a stop giving a strangled howl. Then it turned back and rushed the archer. Blood poured out from its new wound.

Celuant sprang toward Lathwinn's hip. She turned as he reached it, but knew not was he was doing in time to stop him. He pulled her knife from its sheath, spun toward the unfolding scene, and threw. As the blade cut through the night, the Noldo first froze, then crumpled, and finally hissed as he fell to his knees with one hand gripping his opposite shoulder.

Lathwinn stooped over him and placed a hand on the same shoulder, but then she turned back to watch her blade bury itself in one of the warg's shoulders. The beast slid over the stones letting out a yipe. Then it fled behind the stone cairn again. Once there, it only lifted its head slightly in a strangled howl. Pain and rage bounced off the canyon walls.

Lathwinn covered her ears and fell to her knees. Celuant turned to look at her. His face drooped and eyes softened.

The warg sprang back into the open. It once more charged the first figure to join it on the stone surface holding the cairn. The figure leapt out of its path, then turned to face it. The beast reached the far cliff-side and turned. The second tall figure rose to its full height, drew back the string of its own bow, and shouted. "Brother, get down!"

The second figure loosed its arrow, and two more joined it in the air, flying out of the surrounding darkness and toward the warg too. The beast yowled again, but continued its sprint and then pounced. Five arrows protruded from its hide, one from it's face, three from its chest, and one from its back leg. Eyes burning with pain and despair pierced into the ellon's. Yet as the elf held its gaze, he reached for his own belt and then thrust his arm up as the beast landed upon him.

Lathwinn screamed out into the night, "Lastannan!"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	15. Chapter 15

**All characters seen in this chapter were first written about by me. The world and greater situations were first written down by J. R. R. Tolkien to whom I am truly grateful.**

 **This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.**

The body hunched in the darkness over the elf's jerked and went still. Lathwinn leapt at it. Celuant grabbed for her, but only snatched air. So, he jumped after her and gave chase. She sprinted for the body. As she slid to a stop beside the warg, Celuant caught up.

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away. She spun in his grip, breaking it, and shoved him knocking the breath from his body. Then turned back to push the side of the warg.

Ranthalion had run over to its other side and was pulling from that direction. The body moved. Celuant stood by and watched. A living warg would have fought them off or at least made a sound by now.

As the body slid aside, a sucked-in breath wafted through the air. A form crept out into the starlight from beneath it. Lathwinn fell to her knees beside its head. "Lastannan! Oh Lastannan!"

Her eldest brother rose to his knees just as her arms encircled his waist. She pulled him against her and buried her face in the back of his head. Ranthalion stepped up to and then bent over them. His voice was a husky whisper. "Are you well?"

Lastannan attempted a shrug. He failed. Being locked in his sister's embrace, pinning his arms in place, did not allow him enough freedom of movement to carry it out. So, he replied in a breathless voice instead. "I feel slightly crushed, like a berry stepped upon, only for the foot to pull back up at the sound of the squish."

Lathwinn murmured into his hair. "I feel only slight fissures in his ribs. They should heal along with the bruises soon."

Lastannan grinned. He tried to turn and look back at his sister. "I am alright little-one as you have said. So, you can let go of me now."

Lathwinn only mumbled against the back of his head again, "I'm not little anymore."

Celuant sagged in relief. Then a voice spoke from behind him.

"What did you do?"

The Noldo turned around. Behind him stood three figures. Sarnin stood back farthest her forehead creased and eyes crinkled in concern and perhaps consternation. The youngest brother stared on in shock at them all, but Melarbeth glared at the Noldo. His eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed, and hand seemed to grip his bow too tight.

Lathwinn turned her head away from her brother's finally. "Celuant enjoyed the hunt too much and the warg noticed somehow I think. That is all. He did nothing else though it was enough. We needn't let him do so again if we take him not on any other hunt."

"We lost our parents to such a warg as this and now we nearly lost Lastannan too, because of him?!"

Ranthalion turned his own gaze toward the Noldo and glared at him as well. The High elf stepped back from them.

Sarnin stepped out from behind her nephews, placed herself between them and Celuant, turned back and spread her arms out in protection. "Your mother died in compassion and your father in love, Melarbeth, Ranthalion. They both lamented such times had come to Middle Earth as these that we must slay any beast without mercy to keep ourselves and home safe. Now you wish to add elves, not orcs, but true, fellow elves to the list of what we must so kill as well? Perhaps needlessly?"

Ranthalion stepped up toward he older elleth glaring still. He glanced over her head at the Noldo. "Just how much of an orc is he, though aunty?"

Lathwinn stood up releasing her eldest brother and stepping over to stand at the side of her next-eldest. "Celuant is angry, like you, for all the sufferings orcs and wargs have caused enough to feel pleasure at the expectation of the death of one of them. That is true. I will never hunt with him behind me again, because of this. But he also felt concern for me, and for you, and for Lastannan. That is why he threw my knife at what hunted us."

She paused and pointed to the blade buried hilt-deep in the warg's shoulder. Every other elf looked with her, save for Celuant himself who stood with closed eyes turned toward the ground at his right. Lathwinn then looked back to meet Ranthalion's gaze before glancing over his shoulder at Melarbeth. "Celuant even irritated his shoulder, injured by the things he was put through in the dens and hallways of creatures like these, where they were twisted by even more horrible things over an even longer period of time. He has suffered like and with them for a time, but is not one of them yet. Give him time to heal."

Three of her brothers bowed their heads slightly with their eyes half-open studying their sister's words. Lastannan himself, however, stood to his feet and began to brush his hands together. "I, for one, want scrub away the blood and hair from my hands. I am far more interested in that than the fate of the Noldo, though if he endangers my sister, brothers, or aunt that will change. I will then skewer him myself as surely as I skewered this warg."

The Noldo looked up, opened his mouth, and then caught sight of Lastannan's empty hands. His eyes crinkled and he pointed at the elf's blood-stained palms. "Where is your knife warrior?"

All the green elves turned and stared at the Noldo blankly. Only Lastannan replied. "It's hardly worth fetching from out of this hairy flesh now. Though, I will miss it. The handle had some nice carvings Aunt Sarnin made herself."

"I can make you another," Sarnin replied.

All this talk of knives reminded Lathwinn to walk to the shoulder of the lifeless warg herself and draw out her own blade with a jerk. Then she looked over her shoulder at the Noldo eyes widening in sudden comprehension. She glanced at her knife, looked back up to meet his gaze, and laughed. "Oh! You think my brother's blade was like mine?"

Now all the other green elves smiled. Sarnin looked down and away from the Noldo to hide hers. The brothers covered their grins with their fists. Lathwinn laughed openly again, and then paused to continue. "Without forges, how could any of us make such things as these?"

Ranthalion spoke, arms folded over his chest, but voice level. "Our sister keeps the only one of metal we have, a gift to her from friends far away during her wandering days."

"Ours are like this one." Manpalan drew out his knife and held it up to the starlight.

Celuant's eyes widened as they stared at it. "What 'is' that formed from?"

"Stag-antler."

Celuant looked up open-mouthed first at Manpalan, then his brothers, sisters, and aunt in turn. They all stared calmly back.

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	16. Chapter 16

**I do not own Glorfindel, Lord Elrond, Erestor, the Hidden Valley, Green Wood the Great, or even Middle Earth. Tolkien created all these characters and I'm so grateful to him for doing so. :) However, I did create Mellolaes. These stories are for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.**

The door opened. Mellolaes turned with wide eyes, disturbed out of her story and wondering whether she had done anything to call Lord Elrond's attention to her again. She hadn't threatened to douse anyone with tea this time. But it was not Lord Elrond.

A head shining with golden light slipped beneath the door-frame. Then the neck beneath it straightened to reveal a square, grinning face. "Mae Govennan."

Mellolaes jumped off Erestor's stool with wide eyes and gave a curtsy. "Mae Govennan, Lord of the Golden Flower."

The Captain raised a hand and chuckled before replying softly, "Please, take your ease, dear elleth of Greenwood the Great, Mellolaes Merilvaidian."

He then turned his gaze toward the ellon on the bed. "I am merely here to check on my old friend in his convalescence. How are you Erestor Steward of Imladris, fellow servant of Lord Elrond."

Erestor scowled over his coverlet at the other Noldo.

Glorfindel merely grinned back, grabbed a chair from a far corner of the room, turned it around, and sat backwards upon it folding his arms over its backrest and then resting his chin upon folded his arms. "I hear there is a tale being told here of great deeds done long ago."

Mellolaes blushed, lowered her eyelashes, and stared down at the floor. "Well … not great deeds like yours … just great enough that my people remember them …"

"I would say medium deeds of long ago …"

Mellolaes turned a glare upon her patient and crossed her arms over her chest. Glorfindel laughed. "Well, I would like to hear this tale myself if it is keeping even such a sour critic as my friend intrigued."

"Oh!" Mellolaes arms flew back to her sides and her gaze went back to the floor as she fidgeted. "I don't know …"

Glorfindel raised his big blue eyes and batted them at her. "Please Merilvaidian …"

Mellolaes blushed again, sat back down on her stool, and continued, though it seemed to Erestor she had skipped ahead quite a bit …

 **I know it's a short chapter, but I've already started work on further ones. :) Reviews are much appreciated and usually responded to. :)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	17. Chapter 17

**All the characters specifically mentioned here, except for Melkor Morgoth, are mine. He, the world and the greater situations in this story were first written about by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please read and enjoy.** **:)**

The elves surrounded the cairn they had made, now bigger than it had been the day before. Lathwinn laid a hand over her heart and the Noldo turned a curious gaze upon her as she began to speak. "May the Creator of all know we did not destroy these, his creations, for our own gain, but only for our protection and that of his other creatures as well."

The other Green elves replied in unison. "May it be."

The Noldo's eyebrows rose as he glanced at the others his gaze settling on Lastannan as he took up the pre-planned if not usual recitation it seemed. "May we all remember well the task our Creator gave us beneath the stars at the beginning of our days."

"May it be," the others replied again.

Ranthalion continued, "May we all ever protect each other, our trees, and both birds as well as beasts."

"May it be."

Melarbeth went on, "May we not let grief or its possibility stop us from doing what is right."

"May it be."

Then Sarnin broke in. This surprised the Noldo so, not only did his eyes swivel to look at her, as they had toward Melarbeth when he spoke, but his face turned to her as well. He marveled at the stillness of her body and softness in her gaze and voice. "May we never forget compassion even as we protect creatures from each other."

Manpalan continued "And may we see our Creator's joy if indeed everything is to be renewed in time."

Lathwinn began to sing. Then the others joined her with their voices. The lyrics of the song were in Silvan, and so stylized, some words drawn out and others run together with the voices singing them first rising, then lowering, and then rising again, Celuant gave up trying to understand them. He simply marveled at how they blended with the music instead.

When the singers finished they gave a collective sigh. Then Lathwinn glanced at him. She gave a laugh though her eyes glistened with tears. "Now that is has been seen to, I think you and my eldest brother both need a bath."

The Noldo stared at her with wide eyes and swallowed, hoping none of the others noticed he bob of his throat. Lastannan gave a sad smile and said "Indeed we do."

. . .

He approached the water and froze. He straightened himself and stared at where water met land. He swallowed. He did not wish to look ...

 _"Look at me!"_

No.

 _He only thought his refusal. He would not even speak to this betrayer once in chains, then freed, then allowed to roam among his fellow Valar, Maia, and even the elves by his king … This breaker of minds and corruptor of hearts would not have his._

 _"LOOK AT ME!"_

 _He trembled. He bent his head. He gazed into the shadows at the base of the dias upon which the Throne sat, instead of into the eyes of the one sitting upon the throne._

 _"Make him look at me!"_

 _Hands grasped his chin and forced his face up. For a moment, he feared the tyrant, the slavemaster, the enemy of all would get his way. But then, mezmorizing as the eyes of this being were, something even more mesmerizing caught his attention above them. Instead of keeing his head down, which was impossible now, he raised his eyes up. He did not meet the gaze of the one glaring at him with malice he could feel like the heat of his forge, though it made him feel weak not strong, and fearful not joyful ,as his forges heat did. He kept his eyes upon those which they had come for instead._

 _How jealous his old mentor would be. He had not even caught a glimpse of his greatest creations again after losing them before losing his life too. Now his student, who had wandered from his teacher's side before he had made these, stared at them. Their beauty caused even this angry voice to fade from his mind for a time. Even when they tried clubbing him in the head to break his focus and make him look into Melkor's eyes, he naturally, instinctively, looked back to the silmarils instead._

 _Somehow though, he remembered the last order given about him by Melkor Morgoth to his most trusted servant._ _"Take him downstairs, deep down, in the weighted levels. Chain him to a forge. He will make me and my armies such grand things there, his people will never escape them, or me. This one will bring me victory, one way or another."_

Thanks for reading.

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to.**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	18. Chapter 18

**Sauron, Melkor Morgoth, Middle Earth, and Valinor are all creations of Tolkien as are the broad situations shown here. The other characters and specific location are mine, so don't go looking for them in the books or movies. I'm just adding a little more detail to Tolkien's world.**

 **I don't plan on making any money from this story, so please just read it an enjoy.**

 _The air did get heavier. The farther they descended, the more he felt it, the weight, the blackness. Down, down, down ..._

 _He had long wandered through mountains, in Valinor, and here in these eastern lands a well, searching for the perfect ore for his forge, but he had never felt such weight, nor such blackness, as this. And the heat …_

 _He had seen blue flames leap high in Valinor. Even here, he had gotten blue centers to appear in the white and yellow flames of his forge. But now ... Drops wrung from his skin slipped down his neck and between his shoulder blades. His head bent and shoulders sagged. His steps slowed as he was made to march at the side of this Sauron … favored servant of his enemy within that same enemy's very halls._

 _"We are here …"_

 _He looked up. Deep, blue light from its center barely illuminated the outline of a forge in front of him. A gangly creature with a bent spine like a row of teeth lumbered toward him. Its real, sharpened teeth to match grinned up at him. Its clawed hands held out an iron collar. He stared at it._

 _Sauron's cold voice whispered over his head. "Bend down …"_

 _He shook his head and backed away from the creature._

 _"Bend down!"_

 _The already hunch-backed servant gibbered at the sound of Sauron's command. It jumped up, grabbing him by his hair, wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled his head down. The creature was heavier than he had expected. He was used to his light kindred. He had thought these poor wretches were only them warped and tarnished over a period of time too long and terrible to contemplate … a thought now making him very nervous._

 _The creature snapped the collar around his neck while holding him in place by his shoulder. Its sharp nails stabbed into his flesh. He was then pulled down by the iron ring's own weight even before the creature threaded a chain through a loop melted into it. The other end of the chain was attached to the forge itself. It's links not only took a long time to melt, but put off a particular scent when they did and also gave off a particular ring when struck. Both scent and sound were known to Sauron and these orcs. At the thought of another being free, the orcs would scream and gibber alerting their overlords to another's escape attempt. All this he would learn later, but first, he learned what his enemy wanted from him in return for trapping him in this place._

 _"You will fashion the metal ore given you into weapons and armor to equip my lord's armies with ..."_

 _He straightened his back and shoulders almost shaking with the effort the iron collar made that movement for him. "You must be mad to think I will betray my brothers or even more distant kin that way."_

 _"You will soon know what will happen if you fail."_

 _So, he was given his first beating as a warning. He_ _learned soon after that even when fed enormously the fires of his new forge gave forth little light. Melkor Morgoth seemed to have found a way to make flames produce great heat while keeping most of his darkness too. The rings, bangs, and howls around the Noldo told him he was not alone in this darkness. There were many forges like his surrounding him._

 _Sometimes, far off, he thought he heard the scream, and even less often, the sobs, of a fellow elf. More often, though, he listened instead to the bellowing, cries, and shouts of orcs as they complained of their misery to each other only to get competing complaints and demands to "shut up" in return._ _He himself tried to work in silence. He listened to the echoes in the room he shared with so many others to see if there was any chance of escape from it if he broke free of his chain. He learned from the echoes the cavern was large and there were indeed many tunnels off it, but they only seemed to lead down in a curly, twisting fashion to mines from which the ore was brought up. Then he and the other smiths purified, smelt, and fashioned it into things to be worn or wielded: weapons, armor, and chains, many chains._

 _Thankfully, he was not asked to make much of the latter creation, but a great deal of the former two instead. He found a_ _grim fun in doing so. He knew they would first be tried in the arena, a sunken hole in the middle of the room. They punished orcs by throwing them into that large pit. Two or more were put into it together, and only half of them, if that, were expected to emerge alive._

 _The forge keepers were very excited by these events if they were not the ones put in themselves. By surrounding the arena, and looking down into it, they got to see how their new creations stood up against a battle-test. The elf also enjoyed thinking of these foul creatures, ready to mob and eat him for even thinking about freedom, being damaged by what he made. He piled up maces, swords, and armor around himself for them to thus use against each other, or so it seemed ..._

 _. . ._

 _He laughed. He was insane, incredibly so, but it felt so good right then. Then he watched his plan unfold in silence, grinning only, after becoming breathless from his laughter._

 _Sauran stared in silence over the crowd wearing and carrying his prisoner's creations. As the ellon viewed the face of Melkor's servant and listened to his stillness, all he could think about was how his keeper had grinned to himself earlier upon seeing the ever growing piles around his forge. He'd turned out breast-plate after breast-plate, sword after sword, mace after mace. But now, now overseer saw for himself his creations worn and carried, he had finally realized the truth._

 _T_ _he weapons were unbalanced, the breast plates did not cover the entirety of an orc's broad chest, leaving dangerous gaps over vital organs. Elves would not be able to resist taking advantage of such gaps. Indeed, he doubted they would ever get the opportunity. Still, he had wasted a great deal of time and resources and fooled his favored servant for a while. It was worth it._

 _Some moments after his laughs had finally died down to become a satisfied silence, he heard the favorite servant of Melkor whisper_ _... "You think this funny?"_

 _He nodded from where he lay sprawled in the dirt some paces from his overseer's feet. "Yes, yes I do."_

 _Sauron strode over and plucked him up by his hair, still long, though now tied back. No one had bothered to remove it down here. Perhaps this was why._ _The servant of Melkor pulled him off his feet and then up even higher to look him in the face. He looked into eyes like the void as a voice seemed to speak out of it to him. "You think you have won?"_

 _He shrugged and ground out a reply through clenched teeth. (It hurt to hang by one's hair.) "Tis no fault of mine you failed to more closely examine my work after I turned it out, but before equipping your lord's army with it."_

 _A smile actually spread over Sauron's face before he replied. The elf felt his form freezing even in that hot place._

 _"Yes, but you shall face 'my' punishment for this before I face mine."_

 _T_ _hen, Morgoth's servant put him back down on his feet, spun him around by his shoulders, grasped both his hands, and slammed them palms down upon the surface of his forge ..._

 _A scream was ripped from him that reverberated through the darkness._

 _. . ._

"Celuant ..?"

He turned. He realized he was breathing hard and sweating while standing still, in the cool of the morning, within a shadowed canyon, by the side of a chill river. He met grey eyes ... like a mist clinging to the canopies of trees. The Sindar ellon staring at him continued to him in a soft, cool voice. It was not like the hiss of a snake though, but like cool droplets hanging suspended in air. "We don't defile a river with what we must wash off our skin to be clean after battle."

"Oh …" The Noldo wondered if the relief he felt was evident in his voice. He tried to avoid the gaze of the ancient elf, although he realized his sweat would reveal him even as he wiped it off. "What do you do then, Green Elf?"

"We rub-off with sand first, then rinse in a river."

The Noldo nodded and turned away from the water without looking into it.

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	19. Chapter 19

**I do not own the characters of Sauron and Melkor Morgoth, nor the settings of Middle Earth and Valinor. Those were created by J. R. R. Tolkien.**

 **I don't mean to make any money off this story, so please just read and, if you like, review.**

 _He thought it was over when Sauron let go of his hands and pulled him back by his hair. He felt the flesh burned to the stone tear away. Tears streamed down his face. He wondered how the pain would ever end, and how soon, but that was not the last of it. The tears didn't wet his cheeks long._

 _Indeed, Sauron, still holding him by his hair, turned his head to the side, and pushed down. He screamed as the right side of his face sizzled. He thrashed, but could not break the grip on his head. It didn't let up no matter what he did. And when he was pulled back up, it was only to feel a jerk to his head he wished had broken his neck and another push downward. Both sides of his face would match it seemed._

. . .

"We're here."

Celuant was pulled up out of his thoughts and looked up. Melarbeth, Ranthalion, and Manpalan stood before him and Lastanan. They three ellon held nearly flat, clay bowls encrusted by wet sand. Two piles of wet sand rested behind them on a ledge below the plateau they'd encamped on before, but higher than the river-flooding area.

Lastanan walked past his brothers onto the ledge and fell to his knees beside the farthest pile of sand. He stripped off his outer and inner shirts baring his pale, smooth, elven skin to the sun and the brown smear of dried, warg blood staining him. Celuant watched in curiousity as the dark elf grabbed a handful of fine, wet silt and rubbed it over the encrusted layer of grime on his arms and chest, where the wounded warg had landed.

Celuant looked down at his own form. He noted the rags he still wore, grimaced, and stripped these off. In truth there was little beneath them to wipe away with his own pile of wet sand, but then he got to his hair and noticed the bits of black dust beneath his fingernails when he drew them away. These specks of dark stone had apparently been held to his scalp by his hair through all his long journey ...

. . .

 _"What have you done?!"_

 _"I tell you he asked for it!"_

 _The ellon in question just lay before the dias this time, back bloody, back of his legs bloody, arms bloody where the orcs had gripped them to drag him toward the forge. They'd tried everything. Neither the chains and hands they pulled him forward by nor the lash digging into him from behind had been enough to get him near the forge without a fight. He'd struggled and thrashed at the sight of the deep, blue light and feel of the dark flames' heat. And even when Sauron held him over it, like he had before, he could not make a thing there. His mind was too filled with fear._

 _"You've ruined him! He's good for nothing but the mines now!"_

 _There was some comfort in the beating and torments Sauron was put through over his inability to ever serve in the capacity Melkor Morgoth had wanted him to. In the mines themselves though, there was little comfort indeed. He was supposed to search them for ore and gems._

 _Beforehand, orcs poured drinks into his mouth that filled him with energy, but burned. Oh, how they burned! And they made him want water all the more as did the heat and dust of the mines. If only he could get water! He received some and a short rest when he brought back results …_

 _So, he had wondered through the mines, hot and thirsty, his throat, stomach, and veins, burning until he found gems. Gems would distract Melkor Morgoth's mind, even if just for a little while. Gems would never be made into weapons that would kill his kin. Melkor would never send gems off in the hands of his warriors. He would want to keep them close, possess them, himself, as always. Especially fine ones might even distract him for several moments, and do his kin no harm in the meantime. So, after getting covered in the ashes of the forge he was coated with the dust and dirt and debris from the mines ..._

 _. . ._

"Celuant!"

He spun around to see four pairs of eyes staring at him wide, focused, horror-filled. Lastannan's arms and chest had been scrubbed clear of brown, sticky residue. Celuant looked down and realized wet, crimson drops filled his own fingernails and ran down his hands. The stinging in his scalp began to register ...

Lastannan reached out, slowly, and took hold of Celuant's wrist, gently. His voice came out low and soft. "Come … we'll take you to the river now, another branch of it not far away, where it's waters lead only to the sea …"

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	20. Chapter 20

**The greater world and situations in this story are Tolkien's, but the two main characters seen in this chapter are my own.**

 **This story is not meant to make any money, so please just read it and enjoy. :)**

Lastannan led him to the riverside, and, this time, he looked ...

. . .

 _He was in the tunnels … searching for gems like always. He'd found metal in these walls, but he wouldn't stop to take a hunk of ore back to them. Heat emanated from his veins, his stomach, and his head. Like the fires of the forge he'd escaped, he felt like a flame without light. Time seemed to stretch out behind him convincing him things had never been different. His mouth had always been dry. His skin had always been damp and coated in dust. His surroundings had always been dark._ _But ... no … There … There was light!_

 _He picked up his pace. A twinge of fear ran through him. What if some keen-eared orc overheard the change in his footsteps and investigated. But no, despite everything else, two things remained true. His footsteps were nearly silent, and it was a long, long way back to his keepers. But could there truly be ..?_

 _Air! He smelled cooler and fresher air! He turned a corner. A draft hit his face. His hair moved. A chill ran over his form. He nearly laughed aloud, but clamped his jaw shut instead. The orcs far behind mustn't hear. They mustn't know!_

 _His searching eyes found it! There was a tiny crevice in a wall! He stuck a few fingers through it. A sob ran through him. The light was blocked, but he could was reaching out now into air, coldness, freedom!_

. . .

He looked into the water, crouched over it, stared. What he saw was not as bad as he'd feared. After all this time, and even the reactions of some of his fellow elves, he'd feared he'd become near-orc. Red-orange eyes around black pupils, thick, almost scaly skin, and pointed teeth did not look back at him from the river. He opened his mouth just to be sure. They were still flat. Now he thought back, even with everything else he'd experienced, he couldn't recall anyone filing his teeth sharp. The inside of his mouth almost appeared normal. He closed it and looked again.

There were the scars. They completely changed the first impression of his face. His nose looked exactly the same, though. The touch of heated metal had not reached it, nor his chin. His ears were the most changed. They were melted into mis-shapen remainders of themselves. His cheeks were scarred beyond recognition as well. His eyes should have been the same, and they weren't orange, but they were different.

His finger-tips slashed the water. The waves disturbed the picture, distorted it. He was angered to see his form re-merge in the watery surface afterward. It hurt, seeing not only the changed face there, but a bent back and stooped shoulders hinged together into a skeleton. His form had once been tall, muscular, perfect.

He'd never been as fair and beautiful as Feonor, or Turgon, or even many others. The greatest ones' sons, brothers, and even dearest friends turned life-long servants had always been lovelier than he too. However, he once didn't look like "that." Now he did.

A frustrated sigh exited his lungs, slipped through his lips, and stirred the water to once again distort the reflection it showed. A shadow fell over it, making his reflection even clearer. He looked up. A tall, unblemished if still common-looking ellon gazed down in him with a bemused smile. "Are you going in or not?"

. . .

 _He dug and dug: tore hunks of earth and rock out with his bare hands. He hadn't known he was still so strong. Desperation surged out of him like the tide. Dirt, pebbles, and even boulders sprayed over his shoulders. Sometimes, a slide of debris from above his hole hid the light, blocked the breeze. He dug even faster to recover them both then._

 _He had given up listening for footsteps, breaths, and growls behind him. He had given up not-alerting them with the noise of his efforts. He just dug faster to escape any hands coming to drag him away. He could breathe it into his nostrils and feel it on his face! Light! Air! Light! Air! Escape! Escape!_

 _The crevice reappeared and remained before him. It was wider. He crouched, twisted, grabbed, pulled! His head was through! His shoulders were out!_

 _He scrambled, pushed, his chest, his abdomen, his hips, his legs, his knees, and finally his feet were all free!_

 _He stood up. He looked up. Air! A rush of wind swept over him. Chilling him. He shivered. Light fell into his eyes. He almost laughed._

 _Through the dark haze always over this place, as he'd noticed when he'd first been pulled and dragged down here, one star shone through, over him, over the crevice._

 _He bit his finger and bowed his head. He wanted to scream for joy. Warm, wetness gushed from his eyes, filled the crevices beneath them, and poured over his cheeks. He smelled salt on this wind. The sea, the wind came from the sea. That meant ..!_

 _He turned. He looked to the south. Home! Home was in that direction. He could get home!_

. . .

"Home …"

"What?"

He shook his head at the Green elf's question. He stood to his feet and stepped into the water. "Let us begin …"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	21. Chapter 21

**I do not own Valinor, Middle Earth, Melkor Morgoth, or Feonor. I did create the main character and his brothers.**

 **I expect to make no money off this story, so please just read and review. :)**

The Noldo ellon walked out into the river. The shadows swallowed part of it and him. He shivered in their darkness.

. . .

 _He had to be careful. Just because he was out of the mines did "not" mean he was out of Morgoth's stronghold. There were towers as well as pits. There were guards on walls as well as guards in chambers. He had to be careful. He skirted the heavier traveled places and went through emptier ones. This made his journey slow, long, and around about, but it kept him away from the roads, walls, and towers._

 _He hugged the shadows even though he missed the light. He did, however, travel in broad daylight too. Orc eyes were dazzled and orc skin burned by the blazing sun. He only went near water during the day. Though it was often in the shadows, which kept it cool, it was still foul from the belching of the smoke-stacks all around. However, it was the liquid available._

 _Food was something else. He found nothing growing there, but inedible briars, but he'd been hungry before. Even in the mines and the forges he'd had mostly liquids that gave him energy. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything solid or even semi-solid in his stomach. He would, however, once he reached home._

. . .

He stopped when he felt his foot nearly drop down from underneath him. He stood near the center of the river now. This was a deep place. He looked up toward the walls of the canyon. Their jagged edges reached up toward the sky like walls with parapets. His throat tightened. He looked down at his reflection again. What must they have seen, his brothers, his kin, when he had come home?

. . .

 _There it was! Home. Not Valinor, true, not where his mother and father were, not where he'd grown up, nor where his brothers had grown up after him, not where he'd met and trained under Feonor, greatest perhaps of all the forgers of metal things, maker of gems more extraordinary than any others. But still, they were elven-made these walls before him. And they housed his brothers. They would soon house him again also._

 _"Brothers! Brothers it is me, your brother! Let me in to embrace you! Let me in to see you!"_

 _And the voice, one of many he had longed to hear called back. "Is it really you, my brother? Is it really you?"_

 _"It is really I. Let me in and I shall prove it to you!"_

 _"Oh brother," that voice had replied "if only you had died …"_

. . .

All of the ellon hardened including his eyes. _If only I had died … Well, perhaps I have._

He dropped to his knees, like he had that night, but in a heavier, angrier despair. Every line of his form was hard. But then the water enveloped him. There was a rush going around his skin and through his hair. So cool, so … moving, stripping away the sand grains clinging to him taking away their slight irritation …

Slowly, his muscles relaxed despite the water's chill. He held out his arms and splayed his fingers out in the direction the water ran. To the sea … these waters run to the sea. And then the tears joined those waters as they went toward Valinor, where he could not go … At least his tears might lap against those shores.

 _I'm sorry, mother, father … I'm sorry. I left thee both for naught and you shall not see your sons again. I'm sorry. But I am dead. They shall soon be too. And even now, I am not your son, not their brother. I am now someone else._

He rose up, standing in the water and looked down again upon the reflection of … Celuant …

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	22. Chapter 22

**I do not own Valinor, Middle Earth, Green elves or noldo. I did create the characters seen in this chapter, except for the eagle.**

 **I did not set out to make any money from this story, so please just read and enjoy. :)**

"Are you clean yet?"

Celuant looked up at the ellon staring at him from atop a stone tall, ancient, and innocent. Yet, the green ellon stared into him knowingly. The noldo looked away toward where the river disappeared around a bend of the canyon flowing to the sea. "If I'm not yet, I may never be."

"Then come out and dry off."

As the green ellon turned away, the noldo stared at his bare back, neck, and head. Perhaps Lastannan wasn't as knowing as he seemed. Celuant walked back through the river, up onto the bank, and over to a bunch of boulders. There, not only Lastannan, who was also glistening with water, but his three brothers still in their green garbs, lay sprawled out on the rocks. Celuant climbed up onto one himself. After a moment, he stretched out upon it.

He looked up toward the sun and frowned. These two new lights in the sky, they had to be from the Trees. And they had thought they were setting off to rescue the last of their light when ... He turned over putting his back to the sun's face.

The other ellon wandered off. He heard them speaking to each other in their own language. This time, he didn't mind. He only looked up when he felt their stares upon him again.

Each stood with pieces of clothing hanging from their hands. Lastannan spoke first. "We talked it over and decided what with your height, you had better have my extra shirt and Ranthalion's extra pants. Until we fatten you up, though, you'd better wear our smaller brothers' smaller things."

Celuant saw Melarbeth roll his eyes. Manpalan ducked his head slightly. Celuant looked back to Lastannan. "Are you sure?"

"We don't want our aunt and sister coming back and seeing you like this."

Celuant felt himself flush slightly. He looked down at the pieces of clothing in question. Then he reached for them and put them on. When he realized how they hung on him, he flushed still more.

A cry from the sky made him glance up. His eyes flashed. This time he flushed in anger. The outline of a great bird circled above their small group.

A voice behind him tore his attention away from it. He reached for a weapon he was glad wasn't there when he saw who was speaking. "Well, well ... Don't you look different now?"

He let himself relax as Lathwinn climbed down from the top of the canyon. Her face beamed with mischief at him. Her aunt followed staring at him with a softer smile. Lastannan spoke from behind his back. "We did our best aunty, but I'm afraid we can't do much more for him until we get the newcomer home."

Celuant kept his gaze upon the returned elleth as they approached. The younger stepped aside for her elder to pass, a pleased grin stamped on her face and arms crossed proudly over her chest. Despite the vigor and energy radiating from Lathwinn there was something that scared him far more radiating from her aunt. The latter stared at him with a soft smile and warm eyes that were drinking in the sight of him.

Though she stared at him, she spoke to her nephews. "All of you did very well, including him." She stepped up to the noldo until she was forced to look up to continue meeting his gaze. He found it odd she had to, when he'd lost so much height. He gazed back down sure he must be misreading her for that and many other reasons. Her voice was filled with frankness and gentleness as she finally spoke up to him. "You look very well now like a green elf."

Despite what he'd thought in the river, he felt an imposter in these borrowed clothes. Despite all his desire and all they offered him, how could he ever be anything, but the elf who'd chosen to sail across the sea back then? He spoke the only thing he dared to now. "Thank you."

The elleth reached out and took his scarred hand before turning away only to tug him after her. "Come on, let's go home …"

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 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	23. Chapter 23

**I do not own Middle Earth, Valinor, Yavanna, Nessa, Ossiriand, or the Noldo. J. R. R. Tolkien first wrote of them.**

 **I did first write of Celuant, Sarnin, and her family.**

 **I do not mean to make money from this story, but merely to share it. I hope Tolkien approves.**

Celuant followed the Green elves down the canyon for he did not know the way. He walked at Sarnin's side staying on the shore of the river stepping lightly on the sometimes dry and scratchy sometimes wet and clinging sand. Above and around the younger elves, well, the elves younger than the lady at his side, ran, climbed, and leapt up the canyon walls to stand on their ledges and look behind and beyond them.

"What are they doing?"

"Looking out for anything right or wrong in our surroundings. Listening for the songs of our people wafting on the breeze. Seeing if they can spot a sign of green, or worse, seeing if there are any signs of orc or wargs having been about in the night, so we can track them to their dens during the day."

Celuant watched as Lathwinn stood looking out. The lady's profile was silhouetted against the bright sky as she looked west. He wondered ... "Tell me of your family, Sarnin."

She sighed. "Well, my sister and I were part of the firstborn generation, the first children born as elflings to those who awakened beneath the stars."

Celuant shivered. Even for him, born to those to first reach the western shores that seemed an ancient and important time a hard thing to grasp looking back. "What was that like?"

"Exciting. We did not know exactly what we were supposed to do, but it was like the stone and water and growing things hummed with the life and song of Iluvatar's touch when he placed us there. My mother and father could tell us about it since they were there."

"And what made you stay?"

She bowed her head and her lashes drooped to brush her cheeks as she replied. "We … we felt responsible. They were 'our' trees, and 'our' stones, and 'our' rivers. The Valar were wondrous beyond compare and we were sure especially after what the witnesses said their land was just the same, but it was just … Iluvatar left 'us' to take care of that place. And it was ours. To abandon it seemed wrong, even though we were growing more fearful of the shadow we pressed back and that sometimes took some of us. My sister and brother-in-law were less afraid. It seemed to us the shadow took those who wondered off and we were less likely to wander from the center of our land where we were first placed, so we were less afraid … then."

"And Lastannan?"

"Yes, he was already born then. And he also stayed near the middle of our land with us. But, he never told us what he wanted. We, my sister and I, spoke of what we wanted, to stay in the land we loved, which needed us. And her husband spoke of his desire to stay with his wife, and Lastannan simply bowed his head and spoke not at all."

"And Ranthalion?"

Sarnin bowed her head further. Her shoulders seemed to tense slightly and her voice came forth a whisper. _"He seemed angry he did not get the choice. At least Lastannan had the opportunity to speak. He did not. He did not know at first, in his youth. He played in the center of the land like everyone else like we let our children and we gave chase, picked him up, and carried him back when he strayed. But then, he grew up, and the land grew dark. We began to fear in our hearts, my sister and I especially, as it reached even toward the center of our land, fissures deep within the earth. The fountains grew less sweet, the air less pure, the stars less bright, the shadows more deep. And Ranthalion saw, and heard our whispers that perhaps we had done wrong. And he grew angry. He had had no choice, but to stay. When we decided to go, I think it was a relief for him."_

Celuant looked up at the elleth now climbing down a little ways from the top of the cliff-face. "And Lathwinn?"

Sarnin raised her head and her eyes grew bright and wide and her cheeks slightly pink as she hummed. "Oh, Lathwinn. As we traveled west, we thought we must indeed be getting close to the Valar's lands, for they grew sweet again, and our woods, Ossiriand of the many rivers, where Ulmo's music resounds throughout and the trees grow strong, well, it seemed that land itself to us. She was born there, in our hope as we tarried in that place."

Celuant bowed his head in thought and studied his feet as they walked in the sand beside Sarnin's. "And were her brothers jealous?"

Sarnin squinted up at the sky and shook her head. "No, I think not. Ranthalion was glad to be in a place his mother and father let him wander, for we thought 'Nothing bad can happen here' when we first reached Ossiriand. So he was allowed to wonder far from our sides up and down the rivers among those trees far form sight and even sound, though, his brother still often followed him then. They both, upon returning and finding a new sister stayed a little closer then."

Sarnin smiled and stared off before them into the canyon then grinning. "It had been so long you see, since we'd had an elfling so long. Ranthalion was one of the last before our own land … Well, before we felt unsafe and we almost never have children when we feel unsafe."

Celuant thought of Valinor and how it had overflowed with elflings, how fewer seemed to be born once Melkor was set free, and how even now he'd not heard of his people having one on these shores as yet. He kept these thoughts to himself though, after several beats of silence Sarnin went on, "But we felt safe there, as I said before, and Lathwinn grew up laughing and playing. She jumped off the high tree branches even as a very little elfing and spun on her way down before landing in a very thick, deep, deep pile of leaves or a deep pool of water where the river runs almost still. That was how she got her name you see."

Celuant nodded and looked up now. "I did think it an unusual name."

"And she was so sweet really, spoiled perhaps, Ranthalion complained a bit he was not so free nor attention-snagging in his youth, but of course there were more elflings then and we kept them far from our borders even then. Yet, he watched her and wandered less himself then. And then Yavanna and Nessa came though … We were ashamed, afraid, but she was not … She smiled at and spoke to them and she … she won a boon for us."

"A blessing … I heard of that." Celuant had heard of that and it had made him and the others nervous. The Noldos who had left and scorned the Valar did not want to hear of others repenting and then being blessed by them nor of a child who'd never scorned them in the first place and then been giving gifts by them. He remembered his own jaw clenching at the sound of the story. "And how did you lose her so beloved an elfling?"

He regretted it the moment he asked. The tone of his voice was hard. And he glanced at her to apologize and saw her face pale and then turn grey and her eyes deepen and look far away into the past. "We were fools …"

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	24. Chapter 24

**I do not own Middle Earth, Valinor, Yavanna, Nessa, Ossiriand, or the Noldo. Tolkien first wrote of them.**

 **I did first write of Celuant, Sarnin, and her family.**

 **I do not mean to make money from this story, but merely to share it. I hope Tolkien approves. :)**

"We thought she was safe. After all, why wouldn't she be? She was blessed and Yavanna and Nessa were just in the land. How could she not be safe? She had friends in the mountains, the little mountain goats. And she loved most to see them in the spring, after their young were born."

Sarnin paused. Her eyelashes drooped over her eyes. Her head bowed. "And none of us went with her that year." She lifted her head and looked to the sky. "Why didn't any of us go with her?"

Celuant watched her and thought of the strange times and places they'd both been caught in. What would it have been like to have believed yourself as safe and blessed as his people used to be on the other shore, when, truly, things like he had now seen, lurked nearby?

Sarnin went on, "It was her mother who first noticed something was wrong, then her brothers, and then her father and I. Her daughter felt confused … frightened to my sister, even all that way away, and she began to go to her. We thought perhaps my sister was overreacting. I didn't say such a thing to her, but her husband did. Their sons though, their faces were already grim. Then we heard it, a cry on the wind. Lathwinn's. And we felt it in our hearts too. She felt despair and anger. What had she to feel so angry and despairing about? Now her father led the way his wife's hand clutched in his. Their sons raced just behind and at either side of them. Some of our people followed. And then we came across what Lathwinn had seen. Bones. The remains of her friends. Bones, mostly of adults, but also of little ones, baby goats just-born. And they didn't look like the remains of creatures caught by wolves, or eagles, or any beasts we'd known. Their limbs looked pulled and flung apart, as if by … hands, but also gnawed upon by sharp teeth. And then, we heard Lathwinn scream. It came to us, echoed, as if from inside a cave. All the rage in her cry was gone replaced by pure fear. We raced to find her, and we did, but it was too late."

Celuant turned his head and realized tears had pooled in Sarnin's eyes. Her voice wavered as she continued her tale. "There she was, small, bound, and gagged among them. They were like us, but not, with sharp teeth, orange eyes, and thick and hairy skin over bulging muscles marred in appearance by scars everywhere. The sight of them shocked us. Yet, even in our confusion, we knew by the smell of death on them, their chuckles of cruelty, the squint of their eyes that they had seen, and suffered, and done terrible things. And they had her. They had our Lathwinn. She sat among them staring at us unable to scream except through her eyes. They picked her up and ran. We gave chase, but they brought down part of the mountain behind them. We were cut off from her. We beat our fists upon the piled rocks and earth and screamed, calling out to her. We tried to dig through the boulders and dirt, but even those not fond of rock and stone could feel what those creatures were doing beyond them. Over and over again the rocks shuddered beneath our feet and hands. Even if we dug this blockage out, there would be another and another between us and Lathwinn to find, slowing us down, keeping us from her. The further in we went the more likely they could trap us inside the earth as well. We despaired."

Sarnin paused. She lifted her eyelashes and chin toward the sky. "All but her brothers. My sobbed so hard and so much I feared she'd come apart or at least loose all her strength. It was as if she was giving birth again, but only to grief. Her husband concentrated on comforting her lest he lose her too. He poured all his energy and time and self into caring for her. I helped the as best I knew how also afraid of losing her. But not my nephews. Our people were confused. What had been those awful things? How many were there? How had they gotten that way? Who were they, or who did they used to be? But we all knew one thing. They came from the east, where we used to be. And we were afraid. But Lathwinn's brothers were more determined than afraid. They told us what they meant to do. We begged them not too, but they left us. They went back into the east, back the way we'd come, back into the darkness. And we grieved for them. We had lost Lathwinn and her brothers. Their father was angry with them as well as grieved, but he did not stop them. He turned again instead to tending his wife, who was all he had left besides me his sister-in-law."

Sarnin paused and titled her head while staring into the past. As she went on, a bit of wonder and surprise entered her voice. "We were all shocked by it, but now that I look back it was perhaps not so odd as we thought. As time went by, and the stars spun in their courses, my sister and her husband began to enjoy a closeness, appreciation, and intimacy with one other in their shared loss that few have known I think. And so, what seemed a long while after the loss of all their children, they made another addition to our family."

Celuant looked up and away from Sarnin toward a figure standing on the edge of a wide ledge of the cliff-face to their right. The elf looked down at him, having to have heard all they said. Celuant noticed the ellon's eyes were grey, not brown, and held a far off, distant, glow like stars shining in their courses.

Sarnin went on. "My sister was overjoyed and grieved at the same time. Overjoyed to have a son again, one she could hold in her arms and love in the present, but grieved that he would never know his siblings. So, we talked to him. We told him, all three of us, about the three of them over and over again. And sometimes, my sister sobbed over him in her grief for them. Sometimes, I did too. Now I think about it, it was no wonder he was so silent then. When did we ever give him time to speak?"

Celueant looked back to the small, silent elf standing nearly motionless as he watched them draw nearer. Only the watcher's head turned as he tracked their course beneath and before him. The ellon from across the sea nodded up at the other ellon, "So, he was nursed and weaned on sorrow then."

Sarnin's head jerked up and she looked to the speaker. She pressed her lips together before nodding. "You could say so, yes."

"And was he jealous when his famous siblings finally came home?"

Sarnin's eyes widened. She looked up at the ellon standing guard herself. Celuant followed her gaze. He saw the other ellon's brows had raised as he stared at him. He had also crouched down and knelt upon one knee, but his expression was otherwise the same. His aunt looked away from him and back down, bowing her head and thinking before she replied. "I suppose … it would be odd if he were not. He was, after all, the only one with us for a while. His mother and his father's love, as well as mine, was concentrated on him as a child, save for our love for each other, but no."

She shook her head and looked back up, but into the past again. "No, we loved the others still, but as those dead. We were really far too obsessed with them. He did not compete with them, but must have felt as if he could not compete with the dead. And could not entirely comfort us over their loss either, which he must have felt also."

Celuant looked back up at the other ellon. Melarbeth had now turned his gaze from them too look ahead. Celuant followed his gaze. There, on another rock outcropping stood an elleth grinning broadly. Celuant nodded to her. "How was it then, when she came home?"

Sarnin's eyes widened, not with shock, but remembered pleasure. She raised her gaze to the sky, grinned, and hummed. "When she came home ..."

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	25. Chapter 25

**I do not own Middle Earth, Valinor, The Green elves, or the Noldo. Tolkien first wrote of them, and I am eternally grateful to him for doing so. :)  
**

 **I did first write of Celuant, Sarnin, and her niece and nephews.**

 **I do not mean to make money from this story. I merely desire to share my writings with fellow fans. I hope, somewhere in Heaven, Tolkien approves. :)**

"We heard it first from far away. My sister, her husband, and I were so ill with grief, we were not allowed by the others to live in east Ossiriand. Our people considered it the most dangerous part of our land then. Also, Melarbeth was rather young at the time. He was about the same age as his sister had been when she was taken from us. So, we kept him near the center of Ossiriand, where we ourselves dwelt. He did not seem anxious to leave his mother's side long anyway. The song began on the north-eastern outskirts of our land. Then the lyrics and melody rippled from there to us through our people. As soon as it reached us, we understood. Lathwinn and her brothers had returned to us!"

Celuant noted the glow coming from the skin of Sarnin's upraised face. Her wide eyes also shone as they stared into the past. He let himself picture all she said in his own mind when she finally went on.

"For a moment, my sister, her husband, and I stayed where we were frozen in joy. Then we raced toward where the song had begun. On the way, we found them! Lastannan and Ranthalion were much as we'd seen them last. Their garments were more threadbare. Their faces were further hardened, but also shining with joy and tears, and Lathwinn was with them!"

Sarnin bowed her head. Her eyes became fountains. Her lips trembled as she went on. "She was all grown up, a little taller, though as slim, but strong too, like a sapling! She grinned and cried all over our people. She laughed and sobbed. When she spied us, she flew to my sister! My sister flew to her. I stood by and just marveled. I studied my niece. Lathwinn seemed barely touched by her time away from us. Yet ..."

For the first time during this part of the tale, Sarnin seemed to grow serious and contemplative. She cocked her head. Her eyes dried as their stare became even more distant. "She did seem different from all of us especially then and there."

Sarnin fell silent and walked with a more meandering gait for a time as if her steps were mimicking her mind that was looking for something to say. "Our loves are very narrow, those of we folk of Ossiriand. I love stones, my kin, my land. and its song. I love all I find in Ossriand along with a few other things I find outside it. Lathwinn's eyes and her love in them seemed not only deeper, but wider. She had come to love many things and many people in many places. She had been a restless leaf in the wind, though glad to not have landed until she reached home. We didn't grieve or worry about this. We had doubted we would ever see her again. She lived. She was home, with us, at last. She was as glad to be with us as we were to have her with us again."

"And did she continue to be so?"

Sarnin seemed not surprised to be interrupted then. She looked up at the sky and studied the clouds as if they could give her the right response. "She has never loved us or her homeland less, I think, but she continues to love not only it and us, but other folks and places more and more."

Celuant looked off into the distance and asked in a dry tone. "What else happened on this happy occasion?"

Sarnin smiled as if she didn't notice his tone. "Lathwinn gave her mother a long embrace. When they parted, my sister moved on to embrace Lastannan, and thank him with words and tears. Lathwinn moved on to embrace her father, who in turn moved on to Lastannan also. My sister then embraced Ranthalion and thanked him in the same manner. Lathwinn embraced me. Then she spied Melarbeth over my shoulder."

Sarnin gave an amused smile. "He'd stood wide-eyed and apart from us all after being dragged along by his mother into the presence of siblings he didn't know. When his mother finally caught sight of her daughter, she'd let go of his hand. Melarbeth had remained standing there where she left him watching while wide-eyed and silent. He met Lathwinn's gaze when she spied him, though. Lathwinn then let go of and moved around her father. She walked over to and knelt on one knee before her brother. Then she asked, 'Who is this?' 'Your little brother,' my sister replied. Then their mother turned to her eldest sons, and, gesturing to her youngest, proclaimed 'Here is your new brother too.' Her eldest sons copied their sister's actions, kneeling upon one knee on either side of her while also staring at their new brother. Melarbeth's gaze flitted from one strange sibling to the next, but his eyes flicked back to Lathwinn as she spoke. Her eyes glittered and mouth grinned as she greeted him, 'Hello, Melarbeth, would you like to learn of what your sister did when she was away, and learn to do as she did then as well? I'd like to teach you, for I'd hate to lose you as others lost me for a time.' Melarbaeth nodded. And that was the beginning."

"So, she did teach Melarbeth how to defend himself?" Celuant stared hard at Sarnin as he waited for her answer.

Sarnin nodded. Her bright face smoothed out into a countenance of seriousness as she did. "She taught us all."

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	26. Chapter 26

**Sarnin and her niece and nephews are mine along with Celuant. The world, Glorfindel, and Erestor are Tolkien's. I hope he doesn't mind. :)**

 **Please enjoy, at no cost. :)**

"She taught us to defend ourselves. We didn't believe her as much then, in the early days, about the dangers we faced. We were too happy. She had, after all, escaped them to come back to us brighter and better in many ways than when she left. We didn't know how hard it had been for her, for her brothers, back then. Even when she told us, all those stories of her time away, we were sad for her and them, but our happiness over her return would overtake us again envelope us. We were so happy. She was back. Her last brother, Manpalan, was born in those days. Another addition to our joy."

Manpalan looked down from his perch to smile at this mention of him in the story, however, then he looked away to something else. Sarnin followed his gaze. Celuant did the same.

Lathwinn had snapped to attention where she stood. She lifted a hand to her mouth and cupped it around her lips. The elleth let out a trail of notes like those in the songs Celuant hadn't understood when they sang them before. The syllables of the words were drawn out, falling and rising in tone, sung rather than said and thus indecipherable to him.

All the other elves around him, though, seemed to understand though. They immediately mimicked Lathwinn, raising their own hands, cupping them around their own mouths, and singing their own trail of notes too. Then they rushed forward. He trailed after them.

His elf ears could hear their hearts beating faster. He saw the joy shining in their faces. Light flahsed in their eyes as well, and he understood. They were going home.

Twas still a long journey to Ossriand even then though. The other elves kept singing throughout it. They seemed to be repeating or joining a song he could not hear. These people had better ears than him it seemed. Celuant figured Lathwinn had truly heard first though. He'd heard she had better ears than most. He wondered if a Noldo with undamaged ears would be able to hear better than she. Eventually, though, he did hear the music calling his companions home, and it almost broke him.

So many voices, each like a raindrop in a thunderstorm, no, each a drop of water in the sea melding together into one song it seemed, a song of welcome. The music was so elven, so wild, so sweet, yet so unlike any had heard before.

Home, just ahead of him was his hosts' home, but not his. What lay ahead was so unknown to him. He wished he had known better the tree-dwellers of his own homeland, Valinor. Would he feel any less this way if he had?

When the canyon turned a certain direction, he saw signs of life, of a great bit of life ahead. He heard the rustling of leaves being funneled to him along with elven voices. He smelled the scents of leaves and grasses and flowers, and beasts on the wind whistling along the canyon walls too. He heard the rushing of many waters too more than those of this river in the canyon they occupied. And there was always the voices, thousands, each unique, yet blending together as only centuries of practice together could help them do.

Soon he saw branches washed up along the shore of the river. He saw growing things clumped here and there in the sand. He saw footprints of beasts on the sandy shores too. Then he saw a wall of green beyond the end of this canyon he walked through. The voices were loud now.

He felt a tension rise up through all his limbs. This was all so strange. Sarnin, her nephews, and her niece though seemed too caught up in this song to notice him and his discomfort. Every face he knew around him now was grinning, their eyes shining, their voices melding together into a symphony along with the others.

Then the canyon opened up fully. All the trees surrounded them. Things started dropping from their branches, forming a beautiful rain: nuts, berries, many of them coated in the golden honey covering he'd had his own first treats from the hands of his guides. They laughed at the deluge, spun in it, and held out their hands to catch the gifts dropped to them from their people.

Celuant tensed even further. Then he noticed the gifts were raining on him too. They didn't hurt. They bounced off him. His stomach growled at the sight and scent of them. But … another fire built up in his stomach.

Tension wrung him out like a harpstring. He looked up. His gaze darted around. Then he felt and saw it, an escape route. He gazed into an opening, a cave, a small space really, merely a den, but he needed it. He needed to be away, in a dark, earthy, thinking place, fit for a Noldo.

He gave a cry. All the other voices, nearby anyway, fell silent at the sound. He hated that, hated himself for ending their song. But he ran into the den, leapt into it, and as he did, a part of him was thankful the others no longer sang.

In the darkness and quiet, inside the cave, inside the den, the walls gave him a sense of familiarity, a little peace. They weren't stone, but he was glad for that. This was not like the place he'd been held captive, not like the fort he'd dwelt in before that, not like the walls of the stolen boats he'd crossed the sea in, or any other place he'd been. Still, it was earth, there were barriers blocking out light and sound, letting him think letting himself feel solitude. Yet, things were not utterly dark either. He could feel some light in the walls themselves, tree-roots, insects, other things. He took a deep breath. Some dust tickled his nostrils, still he felt free and safe, and he closed his eyes and drifted away for a bit.

. . .

"Please, stop here in this tale."

Mellolaes jerked. She blinked as she came out of her story and stared down at her patient. She blinked again.

He was gray-fashed, almost ashen. His expression was lax with despair. She opened her mouth to ask why. Then she felt a hand fall upon her shoulder.

She looked up into Glorfindel's face. A sheen of tears coated the surfaces of his blue eyes. She gazed into them while hearing his voice warm and soft and low. "Please … go ... I'll take care of him now. Go … Find Estel and tend to his needs for a time."

Mellolaes blinked and glanced back down at her patient. Then she rose, still staring at him. Thus she backed away, toward the door behind her. She exited through it the same way and then closed it before her own face still looking in. Only when she had disappeared behind it, did Glorfindel look back to the ellon in the bed.

"Why did you have her continue this tale in the first place? You had to know it would affect you this way. I at least suspected it would. Now you have hurt her as well."

Erestor his head facing away from the other elf and his eyes closed, but a corner of his mouth curled up into a bitter smile. "Why? Because it was a good tale. Too good as it turns out …"

The smile fell away. He opened his eyes then. A sheen of tears coated their dark orbs though they stared only at the wall. "I cannot bear to hear anymore of it for now …"

Glorfindel frowned down at him. "Perhaps you should not hear anymore of it, at all."

 **God bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	27. Chapter 27

**Every place and every character mentioned by name is Tolkien's not mine, save Mellolaes. I give him and God all the credit for them, for Mellolaes I only give God's inspiration credit. :)**

 **This story is not meant to bring me financial gain, so please just read it and enjoy. Maybe tell me what you think.**

"Why?"

"Why? Because I can see you beginning to fade already."

Erestor stiffened, and Glorfindel knew why. Elves barely noticed, if they realized it at all, when they faded. The farther you were along that path, the less you were aware of it until it was too late. Glorfindel's once gentle expression had become a hard scowl now. "How could you be so reckless?"

The golden-haired Noldo strode around the bed. He went to the nearest window and flung it open. Then he looked back into the scowling face of the other ancient elf; he flung an arm out to gesture to the land beyond the window. "Do you not see? There are many elves in that valley, and all of them depend on you!"

"They do not."

Glorfindel's face fell as his arm returned to his side. He shut the window before turning fully back to Erestor and crossing his arms over his chest. "Do they not?"

"No. They depend upon Lord Elrond."

Glorfindel sat down in the chair nearest both the window and head of the bed, it was too small for his long limbs. Then he leaned over staring at Erestor. His voice gentled again. "And does Lord Elrond not depend upon you?"

Erector sighed. His voice came out tired, wistful even. "Galadriel said it a few years back. No one really needs me anymore. The servants know what to do. They've done it all hundreds of times."

"Have they now? And does that matter. Here, it is still the highest of compliments to do something you deem 'well-done' is it not?"

Erestor nodded. "It is, but … I begin to say it more and more … then I raise the standard, and then they meet it again. And so, the circle continues endlessly …"

"And does that not bring Elrond's house more glory?"

Erestor only blinked and stared at his coverlet, but Glorfindel could tell he was thinking and that was good. He had to keep him thinking. He leaned over and whispered into the face that still refused to look at him. "Do you really want to abandon him, Elrond, descendant of your queen, who took you in when you lost your first master?"

Erestor's eyes filled with tears. "Elrond does not even know. Her descendant, doesn't even know of him. Neither did she."

"Galadriel knows, and so do I."

"You didn't know him. Neither of you knew him. Neither of you cared. No one misses him, but me."

Glorfindel sighed. "I admit to not knowing him well. Galadriel knew him better, but does it matter?"

"It matters … It has always mattered … but only to me."

Glorfindel let out a huff of breath. "So, what are you going to do? Go after him, search for him in the dark corners of The Halls?"

Erestor fell silent. Glorfindel leaned forward again, very close to the other elf's face, and played his last card. "What about Estel?"

Erestor's face flushed. His gaze shot up to meet Glorfindel's. The golden elf nodded. "Oh yes, when he leaves us, you won't find him in the halls. What will you tell your friend then? That you left before you saw perhaps the greatest king among men, also descended from one of our own, ascend to his throne? You left him, when he was still a small child, to grieve for you?"

Erestor stared daggers at the golden elf, but the grey was completely gone from his complexion. He snarled at the warrior. "That was a low blow."

"You drove me to it."

Glrofindel turned and headed for the door. "I am going to tell Lord Elrond to come up and see you, and explain things to Mellolaes, if I can."

Glorfindel stepped out the door and met the accusing gaze of Mellolaes. She crossed her arms over her chest as she stared up at him. He grit his teeth with wide eyes while gently closing the door behind him. After he accomplished that, he took her by the arm gently before even more gently turning her toward the stairs. He spoke to her in a soft voice, hoping none, including Erestor, could hear him. "Let us go somewhere we can talk."

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	28. Chapter 28

**Every place and every character mentioned by name is Tolkien's not mine, save Mellolaes. I give him and God all the credit for them, for Mellolaes I only give God's inspiration credit. :)**

 **This story is not meant to bring me financial gain, so please just read it and enjoy. Maybe tell me what you think.**

Glorfindel led the young elleth into a comfortable, but little used room. It was Erestor and Elrond's hide-away, barely used, because they were both far more addicted to work than to wine.

The Golden ellon closed the door behind them and turned to the Silvan. She still stared at him with hard, green eyes and her arms crossed over her chest. He sighed. "I suppose you want to know what that was about?"

She nodded. Glorfindel's eyes widened. Complete silence from a Silvan elleth. This was not good.

He walked over toward the window behind her and to her right, running a hand over his scalp. He gave a long, low sigh before raising his head and looking out the window. He let his fingers run down his cheek and jaw line. "You once said … 'I hate to think of any of you that way' …"

Mellolaes had turned where she stood to follow the ellon with her eyes. The brows above her green orbs rose. Glorfindel continued gazing out the window. His voice grew soft. "You have no idea what that meant to me …"

Mellolaes' own gaze grew softer. Glorfindel lowered his face into his hands to rub it. He finally turned back to her. "Nonetheless," he looked up and met her gaze with a hard one of his own, "we shed our own kins' blood, Mellolaes, on many occasions."

Mellolaes tilted her head in confusion. Then she actually gave him a small smile as she sat down on a white couch behind her. "Glorfindel, there were just a few such occasions. And you … did not participate in … any of the others, did you?" It was a carefully worded question delivered in a light-tone.

She leaned forward with an even bigger smile showing hope and belief. Glorfindel sat down across from that smile on a light-blue couch. The fabric color set of his famous, golden hair, pure white skin, and equally blue eyes. He kept his gaze turned away from her innocent one. "We … I … did not participate in any of the others, but I knew of them. And do you know what the worst part was about the knowing of 'some' of them?"

Mellolaes let her smile fall away. She leaned back as she listened. He finally looked to her. "I understood. I heard what was happening, I grieved, and I said 'nothing,' because I understood why, and I was equally enough a coward to say 'nothing' then."

Mellolaes stared at him. This time, as she spoke, there was a strain in her voice. 'What was happening then?"

"Elves were escaping …" he waved a hand to gesture to something no longer there as he met her gaze, "from Morgoth's stronghold, and we … due to those 'set' free … and their actions, did not dare welcome the others back."

Mellolaes gave a slight shrug. She hated herself for it but continued in a lighter voice than she knew she would like those they spoke of overhearing from her on the matter. "And you sent them away. Some of them came to us." She bit her bottom lip and then went on. "It was horrible. I can't imagine the deep hurt they felt, but good things came from it, like green blades from dark soil … Some came among us and live there still. They are 'our' kin now and have been happy being so for a long while."

Glorfindel leaned back into the couch … "Not all … There were those who refused to leave sight of our walls when we tried sending them away … So, we … we slew them, Mellolaes, from our walls."

Mellolaes jerked upright and stared at the golden elf. "Not you!"

Glorfindel shook his head. "No, not me, I never had that unfortunate … tragic duty, was never even in the vicinity of it, but I knew of it. I heard of it. And I just bowed my head and accepted it as a necessity of facing an enemy with no mercy, a mesmerizing gaze, and dreadful cunning."

Glorfindel closed his eyes and bowed his head further. "Erestor … Erestor is no kin-killer, quite the opposite in fact. His kin, kin-of-the-heart, was killed."

Glorfindel raised his sad, golden head to look Mellolaes in the eye again. "I told you his friend was dragged from his horse by orcs, and that was true. But it was no orc that slew Erestor's only friend in those days. They only captured him, tortured him, made him a slave, but when he returned to us after escaping them, that torment, that torture, that slavery … 'we' slew him."

Mellolaes' mouth dropped open. She stared at Glorfindel. He no longer met her gaze now, but stared beyond her head and into the past itself. "And perhaps the worst part was, the rest of us went on with our lives, our mission, mourning him, but not ... not admitting what we'd done, just believing and knowing he was dead. I heard of it later and did the same. I was sad, uneasy, but not enraged. Erestor could not. He's never fully forgiven us ... not me as much as I wasn't there, but ... many Noldo ... truly, Noldo in general."

Glorfindel finally turned a tearful smile back upon Mellolaes. "That is why he is so fond of Melian's kin. Your people are too rough and simple for him, but after that ... he couldn't bear being around the Noldo for centuries. As we grew farther away from that time, he began to accept their descendants who know not their ancestors' sins. He also likes Galadriel well enough, who was far away in another place, with his queen then. Even those, like me, not directly involved and afterward well-punished, he can be civil, even genteel, with. However, when he comes across an ancient Noldo he knows was there or participated in such things ... he stares at them, daring them to call him one of us, daring them to tell him it's not their fault his friend is dead."

Mellolaes eyes overflowed. Rivers ran down her face. "And now I have reminded him of all those things …"

Glorfindel looked back to her and his mouth fell open. "Oh Mellolaes." He rose from his own couch, went over, knelt before hers, and wrapped her slight body in his strong arms. His voice grew softer. "It's alright. It's not your fault. It ours. It's ours …"

She sobbed into his shoulder. "But I was so proud … I wanted to show him we had fine tales too, tell him a story he'd think fine, splendid even, one of his people, one with sorrow …"

Glorfindel had no words for that, so he only squeezed her harder.

 **Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to. :)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	29. Chapter 29

**I do not own Erestor, Elrond, Glorfindel, Middle Earth, or Ossiriand. With other characters, I believe I am their only writer.**

 **I wish to bring enjoyment to fellow fans rather than make money. :)**

Mellolaes went where Silvans go when they are distressed. She surrounded herself with trees growing outside Elrond's extensive gardens and tried to breathe. Her breast, though, was stiffened by memories of what Glorfindel had said and how Erestor had looked before she left him in his room.

As Mellolaes recalled these things, the leaves rustled around her. She looked up at them and then beyond them to the sky. Her heart and mind went where she commanded them even as her will knelt to the One she wished to seek. _"My Lord … what shall I do?"_

She paused continuing to stare into the leaves and sky. She waited in silence. Her face was illuminated by the light at times and shaded at others as the branches above her moved to shade her or reveal the sky.

Then her face was suddenly aglow from within as she stared. All the wind settled around her. Every branch, leaf, and blade of grass went completely still. The elleth's mouth hung open as she stared upward into the blue sky.

. . .

The elleth stepped lightly through the open door and up to the steward's bedside. He looked away from the book he held and stared at her wide-eyes. She sat down gently on the chair to the right of his bed looking back at him bleakly. He raised an eyebrow at her, "What is it, young elleth?"

Mellolaes bowed her head for a moment. Then she raised it again to meet his gaze. "I … I have come to tell you the rest of the story."

Both of Erestor's eyebrows flew upward. "Truly?"

Mellolaes nodded. "I ... I told my charge I would try to make you happy and instead left you miserable. And I have been charged once more, to continue telling you this story to you ... The tale does have a happy even if there is much sorrow in it. Please listen!"

Erestor stared at her a moment. He noted her eyes were closed, she bit her bottom lip, and clasped her hands in her lap hard. He carefully set aside "The Fall of Gondolin" the the left of his legs beneath the coverlet and carefully settled himself back into his pillows before nodding. "Go ahead then elleth, and execute this charge you have been given, which obviously means so much to you." He gave a soft smile. "I believe I can take it today."

. . .

Lathwinn stood outside the den's low entryway with her brothers. Her arms were crossed over her chest and back straight and chin lifted as she stared the four ellon down. "It has been ten days, brothers. It is past time he come out!"

Her second-eldest brother snorted. "Let him be! If he wants to remain in the dark allow it, he causes no trouble to any as he is."

"His cry and silence after and fading feeling now have thus far troubled our kin's hearts greatly. And you know aunt Sarnin's in particular deeply sorrows over him even now."

Her second eldest brother pursed his lips, but her eldest brother continued his point for him. "As bad as those things are, dear sister, it remains better than some mischief he could get up to were he up and about among us."

Lastannan sat squatted before the den's entrance, apparently to gaze inside the hole. In reality, he did not wish to seem like he was trying to command his little sister. He carefully did not flaunt his height, age, or eldest born status before Lathwinn the Great just now. He had learned that did not work well in gaining her acquiescence.

Her heart was soft and warm most of the time, but almost always strong and sometimes hot as well. Her youth, slenderness, and smallness of stature were not often great factors in an argument with Lathwinn the great.

His younger and her second elder brother, just a little shorter than her and taller than her, stood before her arms crossed and brows furrowed. Ranthallion seemed to truly fear this stranger. Lastannan did not know what to do. Their parents were gone now. Their king hung back to watch and wait before deciding to use his authority to either chase away or force a guest to stay who did not want to.

Lathwinn was all for dragging the stranger out above ground and forcing life back into him. Their brother was all for letting him fade away. Lastannan did not know who to side with.

The ellon seemed honorable and safe enough. His actions had not so far proved otherwise. However, Lastannan did not have the powers of either his only sister nor his eldest younger brother to see deep into the spirits of others. His brother had always been able to sense danger from afar and foulness lurking under the mildness of others' faces and voices. His sister had always been able to see both the obvious and deep goodness in most things. She could often tell when a danger lurked too, but was sometimes drawn in to far by a things remaining good when its evil could still lash out.

Lastannan felt himself pulled in the direction of protecting his little sister now. "We do not know who this ellon truly is or was or what he will do once among us again, Lathwinn."

"And thus, we will simply leave him to die in the darkness?"

Her brothers stared at her a moment. Then the older ones looked downward, her eldest brother's face lax, the other still scowling. The younger two simply stared up at her in calm lying relaxed on the ground as the other three fought things out with words above them. They wanted to be nearby however it came out, but Melarbeth wished to observe more before forming a strong opinion. Manpalan didn't know if he'd earned the right to have one yet. This is the way it often was among the five of them and how it would often be for many centuries yet to come.

Lathwinn glanced a little longer between her four brothers before continuing. "If we would not leave the least of beasts to perish so, how can we leave one of our fellow elves to such a fate?"

Melarbeth now sighed, for he figured he would not be allowed to continue lying his head neatly cradled in his interlaced fingers for long. Ranthalion briefly lifted his arms above his head before turning away and letting his hands fall to slap against his thighs. Then he rested them on his hips. Lastanan rubbed his chin before shuffling aside and whispering _"Be careful little sister ..."_

Manpalan stepped forward and rested his hand lightly upon the hilt of his deer-antler knife stuck into its deer-antler-cast-leather sheath. Lathwinn grinned at them all. Then she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the opening of the den.

 **What do you think?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScirbeofHeroes**


	30. Chapter 30

**I believe all characters seen here were first written into my stories. Ossiriand was first written of by J. J. R. Tolkien. I was much inspired by God's own great creation "Nature" here. :)**

 **Please read and enjoy without cost, ScribeofHeroes. :)**

He could still sense life beyond him, life beyond these earthen walls but the sounds grew hollow and meaningless to him, a slight comfort, but not very much of one like a hand running up and down one's arm while the limb grows numb. Mostly his mind was filled with darkness. Twas not the smothering kind as had been in Morgoth's fortress, but rather the kind of sleep. He wanted it … Desperately he wanted it, which is why he growled when he felt pressuring fingers dig into either side of his ankle. At the sound of his soft snarl, a voice answered him.

"Oh, don't be a bear. Come out here."

Celuant found himself dragged into the light of noon day. An increasingly deafening din of living, thriving woodlands filled his ears. He turned his head and blinked at the world above him. His senses gradually returned to fuller strength. He was gazing into the smiling face of a familiar elleth. He murmured up at it. "You …"

She grinned down upon him. "Indeed. You did realize that sooner did you not? I accompanied, guided really, you here along with my brothers and aunt. This is my home. Would it not be I who dragged you from your den? We've let it be yours this long while you know?"

Celuant turned his gaze from her and looked beyond. Her four brothers stood behind her staring back at him, looking less friendly than she did. The youngest tucked in his chin and lowered his gaze, but still stood stiffly. The second youngest stared back intently, but his expression was mild. The second eldest scowled right at him his arms crossed over his chest. The eldest stood less tense than his closest brother, tighter in form and face than his second youngest, but showing none of the doubt his youngest did.

Indeed, the slight fear and concern in Lastannan's eyes was something Celuant understood well. The relative stranger to them took in a deep breath before letting it go in a sigh. He closed his eyes letting his head fall back onto the earth with a soft thud.

Lathwinn bent over and slapped the side of his foot. "Oh, no you can't do that now! My forest is in the peak of its late spring or early summer beauty depending on how you look at things. I will not let it's beauty go unappreciated by any in its vicinity!"

"If I rise and thus 'admire' it, will you then leave me alone?"

"Just so but doing thus will take several days."

Celuant gave another long sigh before sitting up. "So be it."

Lathwinn turned and led him away. Her four brothers followed. In the shade of a tree and behind some bushes, Sarnin watched and smiled. Her brown eyes twinkled and grew warm.

. . .

Thus, Lathwinn led Ceulant through her homeland Ossiriand avoiding the mighty rivers it was named for at first. They explored the deeper woods instead top to bottom. Then they explored the meadows as well.

Layer upon layer, layer upon layer of life she showed Celuant. She introduced him to the land of Ossriand where the green elves dwelled. There, they studied life in all its fullness that the sun and moon had called forth. There, the green elves memorized the seasons and cycles of living things and enjoyed them more than most.

The tops of the trees facing the sun and stars in the sky belonged to those with wings, from the great wings of the birds with claws on their feet to the tiny ones of many-colored scales who once had been caterpillars. There leaves rustled, and tree flowers bloomed, and the sun warmed the stretched-out bodies of green elves sprawled across tallith. Clouds and wings shaded their faces briefly and caused them to open their eyes to identify the definite or possible shapes of both.

The inner world of the tree branches belonged to the climbers. Squirrels and the smaller-winged birds rushed through them. Insects with the wings like flat, wide drops of water buzzed through as well before landing and crawling on either tree of elven limbs leaving either skirting sounds or scratchy feelings for the latter to see or feel. If the tallith were the green elves beds the branches were their both chairs and highways to them where they rested or wandered by turns.

The trunks were where greater beasts sharpened their claws or their horns. The deer ran and bears shuffled through the undergrowth of briars and bushes beneath their trees. Spotted fauns hid among the latter. Even more insects buzzed through them. Even more and tinier birds landed among them and in their branches built their nests, laid within these eggs, and then brought up their young. Nuts and fruits crashed through thin, curving branches from the thicker, stronger, and straighter ones stretched out above. Petals fluttered through them as well.

Covering the ground itself were the broad-leaves which bugs crawled across on tiny black leds and which rabbits hopped though on great broad feet. Mice, squirrels, and chipmunks skittered under them instead hiding from sharp eyes above. Flowers bloomed from their delicate stems.

And then there were the great meadows ringed by all these things. There the deer leapt and ran. There rabbits could do the same swishing through the grass. Wind whistled free only bending the long grasses. Ground-nesting birds made their nests from and among the same. More flowers grew and bloomed here on long stalks thick and hollow or delicate and stiff. Butterflies laid their eggs on the leaves bursting from these stems. The caterpillars hatched and munched on the same, before spinning cocoons or melting into crystals from which they burst forth wet and defeated looking only to dry into all their glory. Other creatures on more translucent wings buzzed among the grasses of the meadows too. The bees were especially beloved to these green elves for rather than munching on leaves they visited the flowers and took from them clear nectar they took back to great combs some many times longer than an elf stood high hanging from great tree-limbs or cliff-sides there turning it into great treasures: honey, wax, and more things elves found innumerable uses for.

After showing him all this, Lathwinn paused atop a tallith built into the highest branches of Ossriand's tallest tree looking over her home. Her eyes grew wet as she looked down. She half-whispered, half-exclaimed, "There is so much at home to love!"

Celuant found himself nodding beside her. His skin was more the color of a healthy elf and his eyes were deep and thoughtful, "Yes, there is."

 **I hope you enjoyed. :)**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	31. Chapter 31

**Hi, I'm back. Sorry it took so long.**

 **I do not own the world or character J. R. R. Tolkien created, though you won't find too many such named characters here, the places however in the grand scheme of things are definitely his. Lathwinn, Celuant, and Sarnin and Lathwinn's brothers, however, are mine.**

He watched from where his chest emerged from the canopy of a tree as the scene played out before him, brows drawn down over his grey eyes. The moon did not shine, and even the stars were dimmed by a thin veil of cloud. The early spring thaw had brought misting showers over the land making it mud in which the deer's hoof sank and even the lightest footed beast left clear prints.

The dark night figures on two feet, bulky and dark in appearance moved through reeds grown up to their chest as they headed for the trees. The ellon continued to watch from his perch in silence. His scowl growing darker.

Then the figures began to jolt as straight shafts with broken tips sliced through the grass and into their chests and bellies. They grabbed the shafts and pulled, but only the ends of the sticks appeared. Then more slender frames danced into view where the grass had bent slightly away from the bulks of the dark figures. Pale starlight shone off pale skin and the less pale blades of deer antler they held. The latter sliced through the dark masses who struck back, but the slighter figures danced away from them into the grass again.

"What do you think?"

Celuant turned his narrowed eyes to the figure as tall as him. Denethor grinned at him. "Are they ready?"

Celuant looked back to watch some of the bulky figures fall. A laugh broke out from one of them utterly destroying the illusion. He knew the bark, the rumbling, the crack of an orc laugh. The melody and music of this one echoing out of a bulk of wickerwork covered in mud and dry grass showed him what he and the green elf beside him knew already. "To face each other in these 'games' of theirs of course. To face real orcs invading your woodlands, no."

Denethor frowned as even more giants of straw and dirt toppled over. "These are exercises made up by Lathwinn herself to train my people for just that event."

"And she has done, and they have done, just as well as they might with the tallest and strongest wearing such replacements for orc flesh, but you have no such replacements for orc armor nor orc blade, nor their other weapons of orc bow and chain."

"We have bows and use them often, however, the exercise would be over too soon …"

"Your bows and arrows and aim are your best defense against invaders I have seen from you, but when you run out of arrows, you are doomed for the hosts of the northern garrison of our enemy are great. You will not withstand them like this."

Denethor turned an intense gaze upon, his lips pressed together, for a moment. Then asked "Will not your own people stop them, Celuant?"

He kept his gaze on the finishing exercise below and to the north in the tall grass where elves without helmet or armor picked up their fellow elves stripping off theirs of mud covering interwoven brambles and grass from last year. Then he replied, "You are my people."

The darker haired and scarred elf jumped down a limb before stopping and speaking over his shoulder to the Green elves' king again. "And no … the Noldo will not save you. When the enemy unleashes the might he's built up for years … they will be stripped away themselves like leaves from a branch in a bitter wind … and your people will have to defend themselves …"

. . .

Celuant was wondering by the remarkably well-held together banks of one of Ossiriand's many swollen rivers when a bright voice asked behind him, "What is this I hear of you disparaging my training exercises?"

He looked back over his shoulder to see the grin of Lathwinn aimed at him a bit of mud still staining her cheek. He knew it must have been rubbed there by a near-blow to her cheek by a mud-covered hand for she was always the leader of the resisting force in her put-together plays and her brothers always among her testers, the oldest ones at least.

He shrugged at her. "I merely speak the truth, you are not ready for a 'true' invasion, my lady, neither you nor your people."

She continued to smile at him. "Yet you stay with us."

He shrugged again. "Where else would I go?"

She set aside a "orc-mask" of mud he had been carrying for what reason he could not guess beyond it being a joke, that was often the excuse for many things green elves did he had found living with them. She took one long stride, as long as her shorter legs could make to stand much closer to him, close enough she had to look up into his face. "Denethor says you called yourself one of us."

He shrugged again. "What else can I be?"

She put a finger to her chin and her brow creased slightly. "You do not act very like us."

"I will never be cheerful, Lady."

Lathwinn sighed and let her hands fall and held them behind her. "Now that is a shame, especially for all my aunt has done to try to make you otherwise."

"Putting together a home for me with things I like is a kindness I cannot forget anymore than I can your kin and you bringing me here, but it is hard to settle in and grow content when you know the land sustaining you will be destroyed."

Lathwinn tilted her head as she studied him her grin finally falling away though her slightly creased brow and pursed lips looked more puzzled than afraid. "Then why do you stay?"

"All Arda will burn, Green elleth, and I fear I cannot cross the sea not without first going through the halls anyway."

Lathwinn gave a slight smile. "It seems not so long ago we convinced you to stay a little while before doing that."

"It has been only a little while among elves, though the creatures you protect might call it otherwise. Indeed, I still cannot fathom why your kin love them so much when their lifespans are so fleeting."

She laughed, though there was a slight cracking in the sound that spoke of pain to him. "I cannot fathom how you and my aunt can love stones that need nothing to drink, or eat, or breathe to be sustained, but simply wear away."

He gave her a slight smile of his own. "Well, that is one thing your aunt and I agree upon at least." He gave a slight bow before continuing. "And now, if I may continue my walk, Lady of the wood."

She gave a slight bow back and turned and walked away. He stared after her a moment before turning. And then another figure stepped out before him. Unlike her niece, she wore a dress of pale green and wore her hair entirely down as she was wont to do when not traveling or tending to some sick or wounded beast, or strange elf."

"Good evening Celuant."

He raised his chin in greeting briefly. "Greetings, Sarnin."

"What is it you seek to find here?"

"I am on my way to the canyon to seek rocks of some profit to me."

"May I come with you, for that is what I seek as well."

"If you insist."

They walked together for some time, Celuant aware of how the elleth gazed at his face. After some time, she finally asked, "What kind of stones do you seek in the canyon and how do you expect them to profit you?"

"I was rather hoping to find something that might interest you."

"Me?"

"To repay you somewhat for all that you have done for me."

"You do not have to repay me, Celuant."

"As you keep saying, but it keeps my occupied as well to do something of the like for you, and is a small way of repaying a debt I do indeed owe you in the only way I can."

She paused and finally looked away from him and to their shared path as they came to the stream. He waded out in it before her. She spoke behind him, "Celuant."

He turned back to see her seated on a large stone mostly dry, but with its root in the water. Even her toes had not yet broken the surface of the stream he saw. She gazed after him. "Do you really think you can never be happy here?"

He made his voice as hard, and thus, he hoped, as convincing as possible. "I do not expect, Lady, to be happy anywhere."

She winced. He hurried on, "But I will say, you and your people, have, for now, made me far less miserable than I ever expected to be again."

She gave a weak smile. Upon seeing it, he hurried on to a turn in the canyon so he could be beyond her sight. Some time after that, he gave a soundless sigh of relief.

When in their presence, it was like a slight itch, he could not scratch, to realize how happy they wanted him to be, like them, and be as miserable as he was. To be away from them though, he was soon realizing once more in the darkness of this canyon its wall cutting him off even from the breath of the forest beyond where they lived, was also torture. Here his own dark thoughts swallowed him. He must admit, he was not good company even to himself. This caused Sarnin's fixation on him to baffle him all the more.

These were, however, slight troubles if troubles they could be called at all. He knew true torture. He knew starvation and thirst. He had known neither here. And it bothered him less he might know them again, than that destruction would come to this land at last.

He hoped and thought he had good reason to believe these people would never know capture like he had. It was one reason he would not have make them armor even if he'd been able to. They were fighters, as the animals they cared for were. In the hands of enemies, they would claw, and bite, and kick and aggravate monsters into killing them outright.

His own armor and perhaps some command they had already been given had protected his life from the orcs who'd taken him, till he was in their fortress. He never wanted to go back there again, nor see any of these people in like bondage. Still it annoyed them they'd put up such a feeble fight when war finally came. Their bright spirits deserved more than that. They ought to make Morgoth remember the day he took their land and lives from him. He thought the Noldo in the north would at least accomplish that and it irked him they would if his own people could not.

His foot touched something and the feel of it caused him to look down. He tilted his head and reached down. He plucked the stone from the riverbed and studied it. How smooth, how hard, how dark this stone was.

He turned it over and over in his hands as memories began to reform in his mind. "Obsidian, the stone of the fiery mountains." He had found it often in his wanderings while searching for metals instead.

If he recalled correctly, it could be shaped with tools and without flame. He climbed out of the waters, knelt down on the bank, where the stars shone down, and began to experiment with it. The results pleased him very much indeed.

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	32. Chapter 32

**All the characters seen here are my own, but the places and situations are all Tolkien's.**

"Attack me …"

Lathwinn and her four brothers raised their eyebrows at Celuant. They had noticed the last few days he'd been working feverishly over a stone, chipping it with another, sanding it, polishing it till it shone. They had even noticed it had taken on the form of a long knife over that time. And they had seen he'd wrapped its hilt in the same deer-antler-hide cloth they made their shoes from, but they had not expected this.

Lathwinn spoke first. "Are you sure you are up to that yet?"

The ellon she saw before her had been getting stronger, but there was no doubt his back had been wrenched and body pushed to limits no elf wanted to think about in Morgoth's mines. His spirit had not seemed up to the task of helping his body reach its full healing potential yet since, and who knew how much was even possible if it ever did? Now, he wanted to spar?

Lathwinn continued her questioning watching the ellon stand before her with his newly crafted knife held loosely in one hand his other hanging lax and feet spread apart. "What would the point be, Celuant?"

"Come and see."

Lastannan cleared his throat and stepped forward from his sister's side "Let me try first."

He strode up to the ellon, one eyebrow raised curiously. Then he swept out his antler-knife. The Noldo met it with his of stone. Lastannan's eyes widened as he felt the difference in how the blow shook through his blade and into his arm. He was also not prepared for the sweeping motion the other elf made, which forced him back.

Lastanan made a leap out of his of his retreat from Celuant's attack. He continued to hold his own blade up in a defensive posture, but there was respect in his voice as he began to circle his opponent. "You have fought with knives before!" His opponent smiled at him.

"Me next! Me next!"

Lathwinn ran up to Celaunt, who had circled to the point his back was then to her. Lastanan, facing his sparring partner and his sister, tried to stop her with a warning growl. "Lathwinn …"

From the feeling of air being displaced behind him, Celuant knew her brother's warning was ignored. He turned, meeting Lathwinn's deer antler blade with his stone one. Instead of looking shocked, Lathwinn giggled into his face. Then she disengaged herself and ducked forward into his defenses. As his eyes widened, Celuant took a great step back, catching one of her arms. Lathwinn leapt up to spin in the air.

Celuant let go. If he had not, his hold would have dislocated if not broken Lathwinn's arm. She landed before him and gave him a wide smirk. Three of her brothers stood behind her scowling with their arms folded over their chests. "She does that to us in sparring matches too. It is most unfair."

Lastannan spoke behind his once sparring partner, who had somehow become his sister's. "You could not have known he would do that like us, Lathwinn."

She continued smiling even as her answer showed she'd heard. "I knew."

Celuant shook his head at the elleth. "Why practice that move at all in a sparring match? In a real battle, an orc would never let you go like that."

Lathwinn continued to grin as she shrugged. "Not unless I slice through their wrist tendons first." Her face grew harder even though she still grinned. "Sometimes I do that." Then she darted forward trying to get inside his defenses again.

Celuant found himself doing all in his power to deflect her blows. Finally, his blow came so swift and hard on her blade the latter shattered. Lathwinn, smoothly pulled another from somewhere on her person, or maybe one of her brothers or one of the others who'd gathered to observe their match since it started, had thrown one to her. Celuant had been so busy looking at the damage his stone blade had made to her antler one, he hadn't seen where her next weapon had come from. Lathwinn kept dancing about and lunging at him. He broke two more of her blades.

Tiring of their match, Celuant smacked his blade into hers in a way, he now knew would break it, and then made a lunge at her grabbing one of her arms as he did so for good measure. They both went down. Lathwinn grinned up at him. A ringing sound filled his ears.

Celuant glanced down at the blade his own had met in her hand. He saw his own reflection in a smooth, metal, flat surface. "Where did you get that?"

Lathwinn shrugged in the grass. "From some friends."

Celuant frowned as he rose to his knees over her. "You mean I have slaved over this stone blade, the past two days, with you, Sarnin, and others only bringing me food and drink, and you have all had metal blades this whole time?"

Lathwinn frowned. She rose to her feet before replying. She even put a hand on her hip as her other still held onto the metal blade. "I said no such thing. 'I' have a metal blade I bring out 'only' on special occasions. None of my kin, let alone my people, will take it from me. You 'slaved' over nothing. We let you work alone and brought food to you as you worked. You chose to make that excellent blade."

Celuant sucked in a breath, but nodded, face cast down and eyes shut. "You did, and I did, I am sorry."

Lathwinn's gaze softened as she looked down at the back of his head. "Apology accepted."

Then she turned and strode away. Suddenly, Celuant was surrounded by ellon, and a few elleth, of Ossiriand, all wearing knives on their person, all staring at his and asking him about him how long it might take him to make one for him, did he have all the needed materials, could they help him look for them, and did they come in only one color?

Celuant looked around at all of them listening in silence for a moment. His plan had worked. Then he looked over the crowd. A sad face looked back at him from among the trunks of young trees. Deep, ancient eyes stared at him from a pale-cream face with locks of dark brown hair falling in waves around it. Celuant's narrowed in wonderment. Something about this had upset Sarnin for some reason ...

 **What do you think?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	33. Chapter 33

**I own only the main characters, not the places, situations, or main villains in this story. Those are all Tolkien's.**

Celuant bent over the stone. He sat on the shore of a river that flowed out of the mountains in which he had found plenty of obsidian stones he could fashion into weapons for the people of Ossiriand. The Green elves had stood and stared open-mouthed at him as he explained to them about different kinds of stones, their uses, and the best types for weapon making. He had told them of how obsidian was hard like metal, yet could be fashioned without fire, and came in many colors. He now found the demand for green and brown obsidian taxing. True warriors among them, knowing they'd be fighting almost entirely at night, asked for black. Some who expected to fight in winter were fascinated with the black obsidian with white marks like fat snowflakes seen from far away and had asked for knives made of them. He had attempted to please them all with his efforts. They had been amazed and pleased and had begun to call him by a new name, Sarnhael, for he was Stone wise.

Sarnin had often stood nearby as he gave these lessons and listened. Sometimes, she drew near as he worked by himself and asked if she might have pieces of stone he had found were no good for weapon-making to use in her own projects. Perhaps that was why she was there now.

"Come, ask your questions, lovely elleth. Why do you stand staring at me without speaking?"

The Green elleth came forth but watched his hands at work rather than looked him in the face. Her voice was soft and slow. "Why do you use such lovely stones only to form instruments of death?"

"Because, other instruments of death will soon be used against us not as lovely, but still cruel."

"You do not know that will be so. Perhaps your own people will stop them before they reach us, or the Valar will, or perhaps even the one who created us, will come back and remake the world before the enemy strikes."

Sarnhael huffed deep in his throat but did not reply. She watched him a little while longer before speaking again, "It frightens me, Celuant, your obsession with our enemy and his plans."

Sarnhael looked up and glared at her. "He 'is' your enemy too. Perhaps I am obsessed with protecting you."

Sarnin sat up at that, but then narrowed her eyes as her voice grew harder and her hands clenched her knees. "Are you sure? You stare at stones far more than you look at me, or this wood, or this family."

He stopped, and turned to stare at her indeed, raising an eyebrow. "'This 'family?'"

She crossed her arms and stared back. "Who seeks you out to feed you when you fail to eat as you obsess about your work? Who pulls you from it to look at something in the woods? Who continues to seek after you at all after you have finished making them the weapons they requested from you?"

Celuant finally gave her a soft smile, though he also looked back to and began his work again. "I admit, your niece and nephews trouble me at my work far more often than any other in this wood, particularly Lathwinn. I think her brothers mostly do so at her request, or yours."

Sarnin smiled at him. "And is that not 'family?'"

Celuant kept working in silence as her question lingered in the air. Finally, he replied. "Perhaps that is … 'family.'"

Sarnin stared at him her face going lax with sadness. "You once said 'Your people are my people. I belong to no other people, but yours.'"

Sarnhael lifted the stone he'd chipped away at and blew upon it before replying. "I did."

"Does that include 'family' too?"

He nodded as he lowered the stone again and lifted his tool to chip at it again. "It does."

"Then why don't you treat us like family, Celuant?"

The ellon sighed. He stilled his hands, looked up, and stared at her his eyes wide and face long. "I … once … belonged to another family. I loved them with everything I had. We joked together, talked together, worked together, much as the members of yours do together, but they betrayed me. My heart is too raw to draw near to those things again."

Sarnin winced. Celuant went on. "I can no longer … stand … to behave like a family member, even with the members of yours, because doing so, reminds me of those in my old one …"

Sarnin's eyes went wide and her mouth opened slightly. "Even when everything else is so different? Your old home was nothing like this." Sarnin tilted her head and raised her arm to gesture at the wood.

Celuant smiled at her. "This wood is not so different from my home city, or even from Valinor as it may first seem. True the Valar are seldom here, but this is still elvish country! It is still elvish air, sweetened as such that I breath in here, elvish light helping me see, and the clear and bright waters I drink are from springs guarded by my people. If anything, your trees and beasts are better off than those in the city my friend helped build. I am at home."

. . .

Erestor moved slightly. He had been lying in perfect, still repose as he listened to the story until that moment. He pulled Mellolaes mind from the tale she weaved as he spoke. The elleth looked up into narrowed eyes and listened to a slightly raspy and tight voice ask, "What … what was that last line?"

Mellolaes blinked. "'I am at home?'"

"No." He shook his head. "The one before that."

Mellolaes blinked and thought back. "'If anything … your trees and beasts are better off than those in the city my friend helped build.'"

Erestor remained propped up on an elbow as he stared at her. His voice grew stronger, yet tighter still, like a pulled bowstring. "You are certain of those final nine words belonging to you story?"

Mellolaes thought for a moment. "Yes. I believe so."

Erestor dropped back into the pillows. "Fascinating."

Mellolaes sat up and stared at him a moment. Thinking of his rasping voice she asked. "Would you like me to hand you your water goblet before I continue?"

He raised and waved a hand. "No, no go on."

Mellolaes lowered her brows and huffed a sigh, but continued.

. . .

Sarnin stared at Sarnhael. He stared back. As his words praising her land homeland sunk in, the lines of her form relaxed. She gave a soft smile. He smiled back.

Celuant believed he had not seen her so happy since his sparring matches with one of her nephews and then her niece. If fact, Sanin looked happier than she had since that first day he'd wandered her land and decided to live.

He looked away. His eyes focused on his work again, but he spoke to her ears. "Anyway, now every member of your family has a knife good enough to meet the metal of any of Morgoth's orcs."

"Thank you for mine, by the way."

"I could not have you be the only one unarmed." Still, he nodded in acceptance of her thanks.

She smiled again and continued in an even softer, sweeter tone. "It was very beautiful work."

He smiled slightly again. "I thought you would enjoy it so."

She nodded. "I did."

Sarnin then rose from her seat on a boulder and approached him even as he continued working. She bent and picked up a shard of obsidian near him. "Is this one big enough to make a blade of?"

He shook his head, "No, you may have it for your own work if you wish."

"Thank you." Sarnin settled herself right next to him and began to rub at the rock. Celuant glanced over at her hands but did not stop nor move his own work away from hers."

She rubbed at the stone until the hour of night the stars shine brightest before the sun rises enough to dim their light. He looked up at her, when he heard her hands stop. His gaze fixed on what she held.

It was a pendent. One hand left it to pull out a string of woven, elven hair from her dress. She moved it through a hole drilled into the stone. "Here." She held it out on the string to him while staring into his eyes. "This is our hair, Lastanann's, Ranthalion's, Lathwinn's, Melarbeth's, Manpalan's, and mine. A shining, polished stone such as you use in your work now hangs from it. Wear it and think of my family and you together here in this wood you love now too."

She put the string over his head. Instead of fighting it, Sarnhael bowed his head to help her. She touched the pendant after it came to rest over his chest. "This is to remind you, wherever you end up going, that you belong here with us, Sarnhael Celuant …"

He looked up at her. Their gazes met. There faces not a hand-span apart. He did not kiss her, but neither did he look away from her gaze nor she his until the sun had risen high in the sky.

. . .

Some days after, Sarnhael continued his work on the bank of the river while wearing his new pendant. Then a sound tore through his soul. His hands stilled. He rose from where he knelt. The cry broke over the woods again. He gazed in its direction with an open mouth.

He turned to look at the place he knew Melarbeth was watching him work from in the cover of branches. There was always a member of his new family watching him work as if they feared for him still. He was usually somewhat annoyed and somewhat amused by this. Now he was glad. They always hid out of his view, but he always knew where they were and who it was.

He now demanded of the younger ellon, "What is that frightful sound?!"

Melarbeth leaned out into view from the tree branch he squatted on and stared in the direction the cry had come from. He replied without hesitation. "It is one of your people. One has wandered into our woods yet again."

Celuant, also known now as Sarnhael, allowed his mouth to fall open before he thought enough to close it. "One of my people … Again?"

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	34. Chapter 34

**Places and situations are Tolkien's, as are the various kinds of elves spoken of here, and the chracters Feonor, Melkor Morgoth, and Erestor.**

Melarbeth jumped down and ran past Celuant. Celuant noted the other elf's mouth stretched in a grimace and his eyes were wider than usual. Sadness dragged at his voice as he spoke softly when he passed him, "Aunt Sarnin and my sister will be heartbroken again!"

Celuant turned and followed the elf with his gaze. His brows furrowed and lips pursed together. A sudden cry broke through the trees again before fading away. Celuant began to move after Melarbeth in the sound's direction.

Soon after, another, softer cry followed the last before it too faded away. Celuant then heard nothing unusual for some time except the silence. The singing woods had ceased to be thus.

Along with the elves the birds had gone silent as had some of the insects. The waters continued to babble all about him, but the forest seemed still compared to what he was used to hearing. He could only continue heading in the general direction he'd seen Melarbeth go.

Then he was close enough to hear the sobs. He turned slightly and continued guided by the new sound. Then he heard Lathwinn's voice also. She was speaking with bright firmness. One word had barely ceased before she began another.

Then Celuant heard Sarnin. Her voice was soft whispering love that came from the center of her being. All the time, both voices mixed together with the sobbing. No other green elves in the vicinity, though he could feel and sometimes spy them in the trees, spoke or sang over these three. Finally, Celuant came to a place he could see as well as hear the scene before him.

Beyond the saplings he stood in, a tree had grown so tall and broad no others had been able to grow in its shade. Under its branches, low-growing ferns and grasses grew instead. Lathwinn and Sarnin knelt among these plants in the shade. Between them lay an elf … if you could call it that.

Celuant's mouth twisted at the sight. _Was I "that" uncomely the first time they saw me?_ He feared he had been. He realized after staring a moment, this elf was not as long as he himself would be lying down. So that was a difference between them. What he first noticed though, was the bones.

Celuant could count them and see their sharp shapes through the pale, greying skin of the elf. Dark hair covered the head pillowed in Lathwinn's lap hiding the face. Celuant guessed Lathwinn had gotten to this elf first. Sarnin was kneeling at the stranger's feet, brushing a finger over their heels as she whispered over her new patient.

Celuant studied the elf again from the feet up to the head, more slowly. Whip-marks turned to scars appeared all throughout the skin from the heels Sarnin brushed to the back of the neck exposed by the hair being swept to the side by Lathwinn. Even the backs of the elf's arms had such marks.

Celuant shook his head. Either this one had been stubborn in Melkor's eyes or good sport in the orcs'. At the very least, he must have been too stubborn to fall under Melkor's spell and thus relegated to work instead of loosed to unwittingly carry out enemy plots. Celuant shook his head again and froze.

The skin was a darker grey than it had been a moment before. The sobs had grown softer. The sound was less. The back and shoulders of the elf shuddered less violently.

Celuant glanced up at the healers. He saw them exchange a despairing stare with each one another over the patient's form. Melarbeth's words and frightened, grieving look appeared in Celuant's mind. " _Lathwinn and Aunt Sarnin will be heartbroken again!"_

Celuant uncrossed his arms, shook his head, and strode out into the shade of the great tree. Elves gathered in branches all around him or standing off amid nearby saplings as he had been looked away from the healers and their patient to watch him. Their drooping mouths opened, and wet eyes widened. Lathwinn and Sarnin looked up at him with the same. Then their mouths pursed, and eyes narrowed as they saw the hardness in Celuant's stare.

He came within one stride of the sobbing elf's side before he stopped. His shadow fell over the elf. He looked down for a quiet moment and then snapped, "Rise soldier!"

The weeping ellon leapt to his feet and blinked at him. As the he stared with even wider eyes and open mouth than the elves around them, Celuant could see the stranger's face clearly for the first time. He studied it. The eyes were grey, and hair dark but not black. The face might have been oval once but was now triangular in its thinness. Two, long, jagged scars stretched down either cheek. His ears were intact.

Celuant snapped again. "What is your name?"

"Mírënólë sir …"

Celuant jerked his head in a nod, but replied, "Your name is now 'Mîrgolodh.'"

The Noldo blinked at him. "My name is now ..?"

Celuant scowled at him. "Do you 'wish' to bear a name and speak a language given to you by those who betrayed you?"

The ellon flinched. His arms flew up before his face. Some of the scars they bore now fit together across the backs of both. Celuant could still see the other elf shake his head behind them, though, and hear his reply. "Nnnnno, sir."

"Good. Your name, if you want to keep its meaning, is now 'Mîrgolodh' then. Though these people may call you something else in time. You should accept that if they do."

The ellon lowered his arms and raised his eyes to him. The grey orbs seemed to take up his whole face. "They … they will allow me to stay with them … alive?"

Lathwinn got to her feet behind Mîrgolodh and laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Is that not what we have been saying this whole time to you?"

Mîrgolodh lowered his arms to his sides and looked down to his feet. His voice went low and soft. _"I did not believe you …"_

Celuant's voice thundered forth. "Believe it!"

The ellon jerked to a soldier's stance and fixed wide eyes upon Celuant's face again. Celuant glared back at him and continued. "What post did you serve?"

The ellon breathed out his reply softly. "I was a standard bearer, and … and a jeweler."

Celant nodded his mouth hardening into a grim line. "You trained with Feonor?"

The ellon bowed his head and lowered his gaze while he nodded. Celuant gave a swift nod back. "So did I."

The ellon's gaze jerked up again. For once, the grey in his skin ceded back as a glow replaced it. "You … you are 'noldo' … like me?"

Celuant shook his head but did so gently this time around. "Not anymore. I am now a green elf, as are you. Here, among these people, is where you'll be safe until Morgoth has smashed through all the fools in the north."

The ellon blinked at him face going grey again in fear, but after a moment the glow returned like a sunrise. Celuant kept silent a moment as he watched this before continuing. "You were held in Angband?"

The ellon's skin went grey again as he bowed his head and nodded. His whole form was tight. Yet, even as the elleth behind their patient gestured wildly at him, Celuant pressed on. "For how long?"

Mîrgolodh's skin-covered, bone shoulders lifted and fell again. "I know not … Our fort had been completed, and city nearly so, when I went searching for gems to replace those we'd left behind. They were meant to decorate our new buildings and ourselves with, so we would look like conquerors and not mourners in this new land. But where I thought I might find such gems, so did our enemy, and I stayed too long when the shadows grew long and deep around me. I was a fool."

Celuant studied the stranger, and then reached out and traced one of the scars on his cheeks. "And what did you do to earn these?"

The ellon flinched and turned to stone beneath the touch but replied. "I had found, cut, and polished a splendid gem under his orders, but it was too good for him, so I smashed it. He was not pleased."

Celuant nodded and drew his hand away. "And he sent you to work in the mines instead of at the workbenches after that?"

The ellon nodded looking down again.

Celuant smiled. "Best thing that could have happened to you, since that is where we both escaped from: an obscure offshoot of a hastily dug and ill-guarded mine tunnel, yes?"

Mîrgolodh's gaze jerked back up to look into Celuant's face. His eyes and face glowed. He smiled as he nodded this time.

Celuant's own face went hard and dark as he continued. "And you went back to the city you'd been meant to decorate and found yourself unwelcome there after all this?"

Now the elleth behind their patient froze and stared wide-open-mouthed, but very narrow-eyes over Mîrgolodh's shoulders at Celuant. The color and warmth fled from Mirgolodh face along with his smile, but he kept his gaze fixed on Celuant's face as he softly answered, _"Yes."_

Celuant continued in a strong, but gentler voice. "You are welcome here."

The ellon eyes bored into Celuant's as his face pinched in a tight expression. Celuant felt the other ellon probing his spirit for the truth. Then Mîrgolodh asked, "Even though I …"

"Did you did look into Melkor's eyes when you were brought before his throne?"

Mîrgolodh shook his head. "No … No … I … I looked up into the Silmarils on his brow instead. It helped ..."

Celuant nodded. His voice lowered and gentled even more. "That is what I did. You are safe now."

The ellon's head fell forward. He collapsed, but his face still shone with light. He fell forward so the top of his head collided with Celuant's chest. Celuant's arms came up automatically to catch him and he slowly lowered himself and Mîrgolodh's form to the ground. The elleth hovered as he held the passed out ellon, but they smiled at Celuant now over their patient.

. . .

When the shadows of evening fell, Mîrgolodh awoke. He began to sob once more. This time, though, the sound held hope along with despair. It still squeezed the gut and ripped at one's heart, but after stiffening again, Celuant clutched the other ellon closer to his chest.

The elleth laid glowing hands on the shuddering, exposed, scarred shoulders of their patient to hopefully give him strength as well as comfort, but they did not speak. Celuant did that.

His now warm voice rustled over the sobbing head again and again. "Shhhhh … It's alright … It's alright … You are safe now. You are welcome in this place. Shhhhh … Shhhhh ..."

. . .

Around midnight, Lathwinn again sat with her legs crossed and her lap full of elven head. This time, though, Mîrgolodh face was turned to the sky. Starlight shone over its lax features when a breeze blew the tree leaves briefly aside to let it reach him.

The elleths' patient was breathing deeply and fully after they rubbed honey over his gums and had him chase it down with spring water. He'd ceased weeping entirely some time ago, and had looked ready for sleep, but they'd made him do those two things first. They both now expected him to sleep days before waking again, but they did expect him to wake.

Lastannan had crept forward and insisted to his two elleth relatives their patient have a bath when he next aokwe. Some weavers who'd watch the scene unfold had already left after saying they would make him clothes while he rested.

 _The ellon truly had no idea how generous the people he's come among are ..._ Celuant thought this to himself as he himself as he watched a few strides away.

Lathwinn looked away from her patient's face and up to Celuant's. Then she glanced at her aunt. Sarnin looked up and met her stare. Sarnin nodded.

Lathwinn's aunt rose and took her place. The younger elleth shifted their patient's head to Sarnin's lap and then rose and walked to Celuant. She paused before him and grinned, resting her hands on her hips before saying, "Come with me."

She walked past him. Celuant raised an eyebrow as he turned to watch her walk by. Then he followed her.

They walked until the sun rose to cast a few rays over the tops of most of the trees of their forest. Then the early golden rays lit a hilly, rocky area beyond the forest's edge. Celuent's gaze took in the place. He studied it. His brows furrowed. He did not believe he'd been here before.

Lathwinn stopped at his side. She whispered low. "We buried them here, because we heard they were stone-lovers more than tree-lovers."

Celuant surveyed the area more carefully. Some stones had obviously been raised unnaturally to stand on their narrow ends. Unusual for Green elves to put forth such efforts to make things look "unnatural." Yet, Celuant thought he could feel sorrow seeping up through the soil here and echoing from the stones into him. This was a place of mourning. "You buried 'who' here?"

Lathwinn looked up at him with a drooping mouth and slightly raised eyebrows. "Your people who came to us after escaping Angband and being turned away from their own. You did not really think 'you' were the first and Mîrgolodh the second did you?"

Celuant turned a bit grey and drew away slightly from the sight before him. Lathwinn went on in a soft voice. "We did not even know their names. They refused to give them to us, just begged us to kill them rather than send them away, and we begged them to believe us that they could stay, but they did not seem to. The moment they calmed, perhaps believing they wouldn't be sent away just yet, they began to fade away … Sometimes we got them here first hoping the stone they were supposed to love so much might help them, but for naught …"

Lathwinn looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, but her face broke out into a great grin. "You were the first, the first to survive, and now we have a second. Thank you, thank you. You are an 'oncoi,' life-giver."

Sarnhael looked away from her and glanced off into the stony hillside again, more confused than he had almost ever been before.

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	35. Chapter 35

**The characters are my own creations, the places and situations, though, are Tolkiens'. To him and God I give credit for this piece, though all mistakes I claim as my own.**

Mîrgolodh was turning into a painful companion. That was how Celuant was coming to think of him anyway. Yet, unfortunately for him, the ellon clung to Celuant. Not literally, thankfully, the ellon was actually less likely to touch another than any in the Singing Woods Celuant had met thus far. Yet, the new young, once-noldo followed him now he was healthy enough.

Celuant raised his eyes from the riverbed to glance the other ellon's way. His heart did rise to see him now, garbed in green, skin shining as a elf's should, and a layer or more of flesh beneath the skin to even it out and hide the bones now, though he'd never be thick and soft of flesh, few elves were, neither would he be brawny as some were. The other elf studied now a bit of stone in his hand and opened his mouth. Celuant rolled his eyes and turned away. "This" was the problem.

"I like these stone. I do. They are fascinating and shine well enough. But they haven't the facets other gems have, and they've no real clarity to them at all."

"We gather them because they are hard, made good weapons, and need no heat to melt them for they can be fashioned into weapons without melting."

Mîrgolodh looked up at him still holding the stone in his hand. "You make beauty out of them too."

"As does Sarnin, but I make them thus so our people will request and carry them with them, not because it pleases me to do so. If you wish to help me with that, you may."

Mîrgolodh smirked as he interrupted. "You insisted I help you."

Celuant finally turned a steely stare upon Mîrgolodh, who flinched back under it. "I insisted, because we 'owe them!' They have given us things we could not provide for ourselves out here. Now we do the same for them!"

"Sarnin doesn't …"

"Because she knows no better! We do!"

Mîrgolodh flinched back again shutting his eyes and wincing away deeply. Celuant put his hand on his hips, hung his head, and sighed. This wasn't working.

He'd assumed their times as prisoners had made them both hard and appreciative of sharp pointy things one could use against those who had hurt them and 'would' hurt their hosts. He was wrong. Mîrgolodh was not hard. He was soft still more like Sarnin than he and more appreciative of beauty.

"You do not want this. Do you?"

Mîrgolodh looked up at him eyes open again. "To be your assistant?"

Celuant nodded. Mîrgolodh's eyes widened in a panic. "No, no, I do. I do!"

He took a step nearer Celuant holding out his hands and arms to him. Celuant raised a hand and hardened his eyes again. "No. You want to cling to me, because I understand. But I don't. You have more in common with the craftsmen of this place than with I. You love beauty too much to help me as I wish your help. 'Your heart' is not filled with hate as mine is."

Mîrgolodh looked down at the water his feet were now in. His glowing skin went sallow. His shining eyes went dark. "I do. And it is." He looked up and glanced around now, "Just … not here they're not …"

Celuant raised his own head and looked around them. The green growing over the edges of the cliffs rising around them were bright against the walls of an entirely different hue. He saw the beauty in them both the way their different shapes, and colors, and natures contrasted with each other to bring a strange harmony in The Song. Yet, it did not movie him not like it did this young one.

He looked back to Mîrgolodh now. "Go and find something you like in this new home of ours something you want to make into the focus of your new craft."

Mîrgolodh looked back to him wide-eyed. "Do you think I will find it, 'here?'"

Celuant nodded. "I do."

Mîrgolodh then gave him the brightest smile he had displayed yet in this place, then turned and disappeared right over the canyon walls. Celaunt gave a slight sigh as he turned back to his work alone.

. . .

It was nightfall when he heard him a strangely bright voice he'd barely heard before behind his back. "You have lost your assistant, Sarnhael."

Celuant took his time straightening to look up into the shining eyes of Melarbeth the quietest of Lathwinn's brothers, so far. Sarnhael raised an eyebrow at him. "You care?"

"I do."

Celuant shook his head and looked down to find the right stones in the river around his feet again. "Why?"

Melarbeth's voice lowered to its usual, serious octave. "Because I believe you about our people being in danger, and I believe you can help as you say. But I also believe like my sister and aunt. Others should not be 'forced' to help you do this. And, you have not forced the one you could have most easily manipulated to do so."

Celuant looked up and met Melarbeth's gaze. The other elf was smiling at him again. Then the Green elf asked him, "May I help?"

Celuant reared back on his heels. His eyes widened at the green Warrior before him. "'You' craft?"

The elf stepped off the boulder he had been squatting on and into the river. "Somewhat."

Celuant studied Melarbeth's clothing now noticing the extra shine to their various pieces, the ornaments sparkling out here and there on them. He'd assumed they were there, because this young one's aunt and sister loved him so much. But perhaps … "How do you think you can help me?"

Melarbeth shrugged. His smile grew a bit. "I have been watching you so closely, and so often, here, I think I can tell almost as well as you now, which stones you will choose. And mine two eyes joined with yours might make your labor go faster at least."

The other ellon wordlessly scoffed a bit, but then asked, "And just 'why' have 'you' been watching me so closely and so often?"

Melarbeth shrugged again. "Well, you're out here by yourself so very often, away from the other elves of our wood, and even the protection of the trees, aunt Sarnin and Lathwinn worried much about you. And it was decided among us, of me and all my brothers, I was the one you seemed to tolerate the company of best."

Celuant bent his head over his crossed arms, and laughed.

Only Melarbeth's great self-control that came from listening to his mother cry without upsetting her further by joining her that let him not react for this. It was the first time Celuant had laughed, he could recall since this ellon had come to stay with them. Lathwinn and Aunt Sarnin would love to hear of it.

For now, he watched and listened as it went on and on until the other elf shook his head. He looked at him, still grinned. Then he raised his shoulders, let them drop, and bent over at the waist again with his eyes on the water, or rather what lay beneath it. He said, "Let us see this acquired skill, then."

Melarbeth nodded. He spoke not back but watched the other ellon a moment more in stillness. This was also the first time he could recall the ellon from the north speaking his name, but then he did not often do this, push himself forward. And the one he used to think so much of as "stranger," and he was still more stranger than all others elves here to him, but Mîrgolodh, barely spoke to any of them at all except perhaps Sarnin, and Lathwinn, when she made him.

Still, Melarbeth's heart told them this was a change. After thinking thus to himself, he gladly set his eyes to searching the watery pebble bed beneath his feet though he still kept his other senses in tune with his surroundings to defend the stranger slowly becoming intwined with his home and family now.

 **What do you think?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	36. Chapter 36

**I own none of the characters seen in the first two sections save Mellolaes, but the only ones I did not first write of in the latter section are Denethor and the mentioned, but unseen, king Thingol. The places mentioned and that the stories are set in, though, are not mine at all.**

 **I do not mean to make any money off this story, so please just read it and enjoy.**

Mellolaes sighed and entered the room. After closing it behind her, she just leaned back against the door. She gazed empty-eyed straight ahead of her.

"What is it nurse of my Lord's youngest child? Why is your face and your form so this night?"

Mellolaes replied in a flat, dull voice. "Estel noticed a deer with a hint of red on its chest while we played outside today. He became certain it had a wound. I chased it through the thick snow to bring it back and prove it was not so to him. But the creature was quite playful and thought it a game. He gave me a merry chase through the woods instead of cooperating to calm Estel down. Of course, I kept coming back to check on Estel, who called out encouragement to me the whole time. I kept telling him the creature was too happy and too spry to be hurt. Apparently though, Elrond has already told him of how some can be hurt greviously, even to the point of death, and not know it is so if they be excited enough … I could wring the great healer's neck."

"Perhaps you should not say so in his own house to his chief steward." Despite his warning, Erestor sounded rather amused and grinned at the elleth. His look was warmer than any he had given her before his injury, bedrest, and the long hours he had spent listening to her story.

Mellolaes smiled slightly herself, straightened before the door, and continued her other story now. "Anyway, (as it turned out) some joker, and I have my suspicions as to who, tied a red string around the beast's neck and set it loose. Once I realized this, I became set upon, since Estel would ask me 'Are you sure' if I tried to simply tell him of this, taking it off the beast to prove to my charge the deer was absolutely _not_ in any danger of dying. But that also turned into quite a quest. The deer was as playful as whoever put that string there. When I finally succeeding in getting that string off, (and it would have been much easier if I had been wearing my trousers instead of this skirt!) and troomped back to my charge, his father was coming out to us. He asked why we had been out so long and weren't Estel's fingers getting cold? They were."

Erestor winced, but instead of chiding whispered, _"I am sure if they were 'very' cold a nurse as skilled as you would have noticed."_

Mellolaes nodded. "Indeed, not even Estel noticed, not out of the beginning of frostbite, but just out of his concern for the deer. He was very happy to see the red string in my hand. Elrond was not. I think he will be asking around after who put it on that deer to begin with."

A dangerous glint came into Erestor's eyes. "Indeed, and when he finds this jokester, he may send them to me to talk to as well. It will give me something to do."

Mellolaes laughed. She strode through the room to sit in the, now far more comfortable, chair beside Erestor bed. He'd had a new chair moved there for her next to his "invalid bed" as he put it. Mellolaes often chided him for so naming it. As she'd said, she'd known plenty of real invalids. He was not one. He merely nodded his ascent gravely at such times, and replied, "But it's as close as I am likely to get to being one."

Now, Mellolaes' green eyes met the watchful, but bright gaze of his near-black eyes. "Speaking of what you can do here in your 'invalid bed' would you like to hear me continue my story?"

Erestor leaned back against his pillows. He closed his own journal, which had been open in his hands. He'd been purusing its pages looking for more patterns in the events of this valley's doing he was in charge of overseeing to do so still better. "If you wish, elleth. It tis an interesting story."

Mellolaes gave the dark-haired elleon a tired, but satisfied grin. "Indeed, great purveryor of elf-legends and histories?"

"More so than I gave it credit for being in the beginning."

Mellolaes nodded, but continued. "You wouldn't mind, then, would you, if I skip ahead in it a little bit? I might not have started such a long story if I'd realized how much Estel would still keep me busy outside and in during these winter months."

Erestor gave a brighter grin as he answered. "As you wish."

. . .

Two, identical ellon took turns watching and listening to this conversation through the keyhole outside the room's door. The youngest told the eldest's mind through his own alone, for they were elven twins and the ears within they spied upon were elven ears, _"You owe me five coppers, dear brother."_

 _"And I'll pay you, dear brother, as I pack to get away before they realize 'I' put that string on the most mischievous deer living within our great valley."_

 _"Shame on you brother, making our little brother's fingers' and toes' grow chill!"_

 _"I had no idea he'd think it hurt! It was only meant to be a small joke between you and I. Besides, you bet me I couldn't do it."_

 _"I bet you that you 'wouldn't' do it, because it was so silly. Now it seems especially so ..."_

 _"Well, I'll go pay you and you can explain to ada after I disappear."_

 _"Or hold you for him until you can."_

 _"Traitor …"_

The two were now walking down the hall side by side as the story of old was told behind them.

. . .

A silence was falling over the Singing Woods. A cool, hard something turned over and squirmed in Celuant's heart when he heard this. He turned from his work. Sarnhael left off chipping away at the mass of obsidian he'd been turning into a knife wondering if he'd ever finish it. He rose and began to walk back into the trees hugging the riverside he'd been working on.

Having learned over the long time he'd lived in the Singing woods, how to identify and begin to travel in the direction of the original disturbance that silenced singers, he began to do so. By listening to the singing usually all around in the Singing Woods, and overhearing where voices softened and voices fell silent altogether, you could navigate oneself to the source of the silence.

He noticed something else now as he walked. The silence seemed to start or deepen wherever he was. He also noticed he saw neither face nor form of any singers either.

Finally, he came to a clearing. There, his eyes were drawn to a tall elf with pale, pale blond hair just a touch of gold among nearly white strands, wearing like cloth in a traveling outfit with trim of also pale, but real gold. He looked down upon the elleth before him. Lathwinn the Great looked back up into the stranger's face intently as he talked to her. Behind her stood her brothers Melarbeth and Ranthalion. The latter, the perhaps wildest ellon among already wild elves, turned his gaze upon Celuant. His stare was hard as the obsidian Sarnhael had been working with.

Celuant stopped. His feet spread out into a firm stance, but he made his return gaze as mild as he could make it. It surprised him, when a sadness welled up from his heart. _My life here had been "good" while it lasted. I hope whatever happens now will not poison the memories I bear out of it._ Sarnhael found himself thinking he should have appreciated more "everything" he'd experienced here, the songs, the rustle of the leaves, the fresh taste of leaves and berries and warmth nuts left you with as they traveled from mouth to stomach, the laughing and rushing of the rivers, and chipping sound of obsidian as he worked with it, and the love of these good elves he'd held back so much from all this time he'd dwelt among them.

Lathwinn, finally, stepped away from the stranger in blue and white. She raised her face, her hands, and her voice to the limbs of the surrounding trees. "Now, I know you have all realized my friends, my kin, a guest is among us. He comes from King Thingol himself, from Doriath, with news from that king, an edict and a warning, and all here are asked to come and hear it!"

Celuant sighed to himself. _I am finished._

 **What do you think will happen now?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	37. Chapter 37

**I have tried to do the research necessary to get this section right. I did most of it with "Tokien Gateway" for it was J. R. R Tolkien who wrote of the events and characters spoken of by the herald first. The herald and specific listeners though are mine, but the people groups and places they are in are, again, J. R. R. Tolkien's. If I get something wrong, please tell me.**

Sarnhael Cleuant sat in the clearing and waited. He was not running from this. He would never run from this. He would not turn away, turn his back, and flee from the consequences of his choices.

This was "just." This was what he'd asked for. Maybe the river had taken him to these people for this reason. He would now receive from them what he had not from others he had hurt.

Lathwinn turned her gaze to him. Her expression was uncommonly hard for her. Her eyes pierced, but did not challenge. She was searching not enraged. He did not look away from her search. He was not entirely certain of what she'd see. He was unwilling to hide what she might.

Her face and eyes became gentler. She remained focused on him. Her head soon tilted in thought.

Soon the air itself became harder to breath. Their surroundings lacked the usual bird and insect sounds as well as those of other creatures. Elves pressed close against each other looking like blades of grass forming a lawn. All gazed at Lathwinn and their guest without speaking a word or singing a note. The stranger in white and blue, shone out like a star among those whose own appearances were more like sunlight shining off a glossy leaf.

Celuant flinched as Mîrgolodh was thrown to the ground at his side. Sarnhael closed his eyes and bowed his head. Mîrgolodh … If there was any reason he would have wanted this to remain hidden, it was his well-being. He had been so happy, so free here … No more.

Sarnhael looked up from the trembling elf's form to see who had treated the young gem-lover so. The wildest brother of Lathwinn the Great glared down at the ellon lying before him. Sarnin and Lathwinn strode up to them. The elleth began to point to Ranthalion speaking sharply to him, but Celuant could not hear the words, or rather he could hear, but not understand them. He was busy looking at Mîrgolodh on the ground, meeting his fellow once-Noldo's gaze, as the latter looked back as him with sickness and despair written on his face, shaking. They both knew why this was happening. They both knew their lives as they had been here were over.

Eventually, Lathwinn and Sarnin both strode back toward the center of the clearing and their guest. Lathwinn came to stand beside him, turned her gaze out to her people, and spoke. Both guilty parties, and everyone else, looked to her. Mîrgolodh got up on his hands and knees.

The Great spoke thus, "I have received this guest who gave me word of a new order, a new command given by Thingol himself as to the conduct he demands of those in his kingdom and the reasons behind this new law."

Already, there was muttering. Celuant had come to learn most here, as everywhere in Arda, were enamored with Melian. They loved, praised, and delighted in her. Most here also seemed to love Thingol, her husband. Yet, they felt far removed from him and his commands. He did not often send them orders to follow. One more reason, Celuant would not fight whatever punishment came down from him who'd been King of the brightest kingdom in Arda before he and the other Noldo had come to these shores with blood on their hands.

Lathwinn cut through the muttering she'd let go on a while with a louder voice. "This law did not seem gravely odious or even inconvenient to me, not at least as much as the reasons behind it. We may only speak in Sindarin from now on not the tongue of the elves who came to this land from over the western sea."

Now there were not mutterings, but exclamations. Not speak the high tongue of the high elves, but why? They had not really spoken it much anyway, but it was a pretty language, one influenced by the presence if not direct guidance of the Valar themselves. Why would Thingol ask this of them?

Lathwinn went on her body slumping and hardening, voice lowering and hardening as well, which gained her people's full attention. "The reason is this … the Noldo who sailed across the sea to us, to our land, to Arda did not do so by the Valar's command, or even with their blessing, but with their curse …"

Now voices did rise. Lathwinn paused. Celuant wondered if she had continued speaking if she would have been heard. Voices rose and rose, not in harmony, but in fear and discordance. A shiver went up Celuant's back. He was reminded by it of times beyond the sea when Melkor roamed free there …

A shrill whistle high, bold, and commanding cut through the noise. The elves stopped, blinked, and turned their stare to the one with fingers still to her lips. Lathwinn pulled her hand away from her face and placed both on her hips. Her eyes narrowed and brows drew together. She looked back at her people right before her. Her very presence and air of authority spoke to them all. "We have more to say and it will be said! All will be explained! We must hear it thoroughly that we might understand. We may or may not have more actions to take as a result of this news! There will also be actions we should not to take, but how can we judge well without truth and how might we judge what is true without listening?"

She looked back to the visitor in blue and white. "I will let the herald from Doriath speak to all of you." She motioned him forward with a swinging arm. "Come forward and tell us what Thingol, Melian, and we here to listen, bid thee speak to us, the truth we must now hear."

Even as he knew his doom neared, Sarnhael Celuant stared upon Lathwinn the Great wondering at her fair speech and the hard poise she displayed. He had known the people of this land listened to her and had assumed it was because she was stubborn and well-loved and a great warrior. For the first time, he realized she could put on authority like she could her quiver and knife-sheath. But now another stepped forward to further his own coming doom.

Celuant looked to the herald. The ellon was raising his head while throwing back his shoulders and straightening his back. He spoke with a grave tone. "Let it be known that Galadriel, confident of Queen Melian, and more newly come to these shores with others, who call themselves the Noldo, did admit that certain gems made by one Feonor were stolen from his house at the same time his father Finwe was killed by our shared enemy. Finwe was friends with Thingol our king, also known as Elwe. Both had traveled over the sea to behold the place offered to us and our ancestors by the Valar to live with them in and then did return to speak to and bear witness to these things to us. This same Finwe was murdered by Melkor, who has made war on us. Your own people heeded Thingol's call to arms to fight against this joint foe's forces, and by them your own king was slain. Thus, we did all, together, consider the Noldo under Feonor's arrival a great blessing to us sent by the Valar themselves at the behest of Iluvatar Himself when they joined the fight and drove Melkor Morgoth's forces back. But my kin, it was not so."

The listening elves eyes' widened and forms straightened and stiffened. They began to chatter among themselves. Lathwinn raised and swept her arms out as though cutting through something while scowling at them, and they fell silent again. She looked to the herald and nodded. He looked back out to his audience and continued.

"Let it be known that in response to this murder and theft, Feonor did gather to himself many elves in the west, mostly his father's people, whose place he now took as their king, and against the counsel of the Valar, did lead them to the seashore. There, he had to gain ships to sail after his foe.

The people of Aman did not wish to give their ships to him nor join his journey and rejection of the Valar's counsel being as fond, protective, and proud of their home and their ships as Feonor was of his stolen gems. They could not make their like again. And in response, Feonor did lead certain elves already with him against them and did slay many on their very ships before leaving on the same."

The herald fell silent a moment. Celuant could see without turning his head the response to this. No words. No sound. Just silence. The information seemed to turn the elves who usually sang to stone. Only Lathwinn, her brother, and the elves flanking them had no surprise in their faces, though their heads were bowed, shoulders fallen, and eyes shut. One tear wound down Lathwinn's face. However, a particular note in the song of pain, great, deep, and not blunted by shock, caused Celuant to turn his head and see Sarnin.

She looked up, straight ahead with the gaze of the wounded innocent. Tears rushed from her eyes and wound through the crevices of her pinched face like overflowing rivers through canyons fed swollen by melted snow. Celuant felt his own shock blunt his emotions. He barely noticed as the herald went on.

"This same Feonor and the original attackers were joined later, by others who had been slower to leave their shores and follow him. They also seemed to have slain kin, though were most morose and distressed to learn later the reason for the slaughter. A third group also came when the battle or slaughter was over and thus their hands were clean, but they got aboard ships thus taken from their kin anyway. Part of the journey over the sea, another warned them what would become of them for the things they had done and words of warning they had spurned. At this, the third wave of journeyers returned west, but the other two went on. Yet they were also parted, when Feonor deliberately left those under command of his half-brother Fingolfin behind. They later came to our shores anyway, by way of the ice that lies atop the sea in the north."

The herald bowed his head, and continued, "Our king feels it is not right either to attack or to trust these who have treated our kin, their kin, so. Feonor is now dead due to a battle against his and our foe's forces soon after their arrival here. First his son, and now his half-brother rule there in the north, but other than obeying the rules already stated, Thingol will allow you elves of Ossriand, you Green Elves, to do with this information as you please."

 **What do you think will happen now?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


	38. Chapter 38

**I have attempted to keep the events and things mentioned in this story accurate to those presented in J. R. R. Tolkien's** original work **"The Silmarillion." I own nothing that was originally his creation. I have created the characters seen here save for Feonor and his sons.**

The elves of the Singing Woods stared at the two once-Noldo, who knelt before them. Lathwinn looked at them straight, guarded, but kind. "Have either you 'Celuant' or you 'Mîrgolodh' anything to say before we, the judges, speak of these matters?"

Neither of those addressed looked at each other. They bowed their heads beneath the others' stares. Celuant took a breath to speak. Then a voice beside him entered his ears. "I will speak."

Sarnhael looked to Mîrgolodh who now stood though his head was still bowed. "I wish to say how healing being among all of you, here, has been for me. I have seen glorious things since coming to Arda, but also harsh, dark, and terrifying things. I have not seen the latter here in Ossiriand, however. Here only good things seem to be. Yet, it has also been terrifying and guilt-wringing for me here too, because I have been hiding from all of you what I have done."

He began to shiver. Celuant was about to reach out to him when he stopped and continued. "As the herald spoke of earlier, I was among those Noldo on the ships and among the first to attack our kin on them. I was under Feonor's spell believing him right in all things …" Mîrgolodh's voice went soft and low, but the silence all around him more than made up for that each word was clear to his listeners. "I thought any actions taken to retrieve those gems from dark Melkor Morgoth's grip, and avenge Finwe, right and more than right, but even I was shocked at Feonor's orders to take those ships no matter what me must do to gain them."

Mîrgolodh looked down at his hands. They were now shaking again. "Feonor and his sons gave me a weapon. I was in the first line as a once-student of Feonor and frequenter in his and his sons' homes. I even wore some armor his sons had given to me. So, the arrows shot at me had no effect. Then we came up to the lines of elves on their ships and I was shoved forward. An elf right before me seemed to find my very presence a bad smell. His face was twisted in rage as he met my gaze. He ran at me. A few of Feonor's sons had tried to show me what to do to make the tool they had given me kill. Somehow, my hand remembered their instructions perfectly. I thrust it into him. His head went back, neck snapping like a line of his ship yanked tight. He barely made a sound. But his blood came gushing out like a released river. I felt the warmth over my arm and saw the shock on his face. I pulled my weapon and hand back out of him. This only made the flow of his blood greater. He fell curling up like a drying leaf. I watched as he swallowed and closed his eyes. Others moved onward around him and me, more enraged, more driven, perhaps, than I. All Feonor's assurances as to the rightness of our cause bled out of me the way the blood poured out of the elf before me I had wounded. As my fellow followers of Feonor went around me, their feet also went around him, so he was not trampled, but it hardly mattered. He did not look at me any further, but straight ahead. He blinked a few times and then went still. That is all I recall until I realized my hands were red and gripping a rope and my feet were pressed into the outer side of the boat. I was hanging low under the guardrail and my back was to the sea, so no one onshore or on deck could see me. When I realized this, I began to climb. I swung myself over the guardrail and onto the deck. It was filled with Noldo. I tried to search for the ellon I had wounded, the ellon I had … killed, but the crowd was too thick. I learned later they had … removed the bodies from the ships. I heard Feonor explain to latecomers what we had done. We had won. We had won the ships, but his words no longer filled me with soaring pride and purpose. Instead, I felt fear. Yet, I did not turn back then. I could not face even 'one' of the Valar ever again not even Nienna and especially not Manwe. I fled over the sea away from them with the other Noldo. To this day, I could not look up into the face of any of them if I returned to Valinor. I cannot even look at any of you now."

The ellon was shaking again. Lathwinn raised a hand palm out toward him to stop his flow of words. "You may cease, Mîrgolodh, if you wish. We have heard your words and shall consider them together. Thank you for giving your testimony. I heard no untruth in it."

Lathwinn then looked to Celuant. "Do you have a tale to tell us too?"

Sarnhael laughed. This froze all the elves even more than Mîrgolodh's words had. Their eyes widened at its sound. It was all flatness and harsh bitterness. "Tale? Tale? You know nothing! You and your 'tales' of long journeys and slaying monsters and returning to your people! None of you know nothing of real betrayal!" He closed his eyes and remembered that day.

 _He strode through the silver sand dunes. The ocean's music had played long in his ears. He was laden with all the things he knew his brothers would not have thought to bring but which might mean much to them on the other shore far from their true home._

 _He dared not ask one of their servants to help carry anything for, and thus come with, him. He would go. He would follow his foolish brothers on this doomed journey, but he would not ask anyone else to do so._

 _Then he heard it, not the music of the sea, but the shouts of elves and clashing of metal upon metal. He picked up his feet. He lengthened his stride until he was running. He ran until he came within sight of the sea and the ships upon it and the elves upon them. He froze. He dropped all he carried._

 _The Teleri who had lovingly made those ships and his own close neighbors in the city of the Noldo fought against each other on the decks of those lovely ships._ _He should have expected it. Yet, he had not. He had heard no strange sounds of monsters nor Melkor's voice, but he had still thought Melkor Morgoth must have found a way to fight and kill silently or had found an ally or allies who could._ _He had not thought to see elves fighting elves._

 _Then he saw his youngest brother being punched by a Teleri. Blood spurted from his brother's nose. He expected the sea elf who had struck him to step back in horror and apologize. Instead, as his youngest brother turned his head away, the Teleri with his knuckles stained red from the other elf's blood punched his brother in the ear too driving him down onto the deck before him._

 _He lost his own senses._

 _He ran. He ran from the things he had brought still lying in the sand. He ran across the beach. He ran up the gangplank. Once on the ship, he screamed in rage. His Noldo neighbors not yet meeting the Teleri in battle looked back at and then parted before him. He ran through them. He jumped upon the backs of crouching Noldo. He finally sprang down upon the ellon who had attacked his youngest brother._

 _Things were no longer as he's last seen them. Now, it was the last to be born son of his parents standing upon his feet. The Teleri who has struck him now clutched his stomach and gripped the guardrail of his ship bending over it. Yet, his own fury was not lessened at this sight. The Teleri raised his gaze to look and meet his with wide eyes. He was shocked._

 _Shocked? How could he be shocked? He had made an ellon bleed! He had made his little brother bleed! '"Nothing" could make that right._

 _He landed while plunging his knife through this other elf's chest. The Teleri's eyes widened still further. Then the life faded from them._

 _He yanked the blade out of him and turned on other Teleri now reaching for he and his brother too. He heard another of his brothers. His eldest younger brother's cry came to his ears._

 _He looked for the source of the sound. Three Teleri dragged his brother into the midst of those fighting against their neighbors and close kin. He lost his grip on self-control even further than before. He slashed his short blade back and forth among Teleri. He sliced through arms and necks. His blade carved a red-spattered path to his eldest younger brother. Then he rained its steel-point down into the backs of those holding his brother down._

 _Their eyes looked up at him wide with shock, and he did not care. He did not care if he had seen them at parties laughing. He did not care if he had sung the praises of the Valar with them in harmony. He did not care if he could have once called them friend or kin._

 _They had hurt his brothers. They had attacked those he had watched grow up along with their parents, those whose first words he had heard spoken, those whose first creations he had helped them forge, those who he had loved all their shorter lives. That was all that mattered to him now._

 _Finally, there was no longer any living Teleri to stab, to stop. All elves not wearing armor and who smelled of the sea, the foam-riders, lay dead. Sea-grey eyes stared straight ahead or were closed. All that moved of them were strands of their hair and folds of their clothing blowing in the breeze always passing over the seashore. However, cloth or strands plastered down in darkening blood were still as stone._

 _He looked up and saw his eldest, younger brother staring at him with an open mouth. His eyes looked almost as dead as those of the elves lying at their feet._ _He looked back, swallowed, and cleared his own throat. Now, he could finally ask the first brother born after him to their parents the first question he wanted answered, "How did this start?"_

 _Feonor's voice, which his heart had once leapt to hear, called out. "Well done! Well done! Now all will know what comes to those who try to stop our quest, who deny me what we need to keep my oath! The ships are ours! Those who are dead cannot enjoy them!"_

 _His own mouth fell open too. He felt his heart melt and drain away within him like spilled wine. He grabbed the armored shoulders of his eldest brother and pulled him close. He now realized the metal he wore was splattered only with the blood of others, not his own. He indeed was the one who had probably stained his brother's armor so._

 _He begged him then, "No! No, they attacked you first! The Valar commanded them to stop you! They did more than the Valar asked by spilling the blood of their kin! Tell me that was how it was! Tell me! Tell me! No!"_

 _Finally, the eyes not meeting his lifted. The head they were placed in only swung back and forth. Tears filled those eyes matching his own, but his brother remained silent before him._

Sarnhael spoke on in a flat voice now among elves garbed in green listening to his "tale" as he recalled it as he recalled being a different elf. "I had known for a long time Feonor was mad. I had stopped listening to him, believing anything he said unless he spoke of Melkor and his evil. I had made blades partly in case I needed to defend myself or family from him or any enemies he had made who would then attack their friends. My brothers were often in his sons' company. When I saw a brother bleed, I asked no questions. I only jumped in to do Feonor's will as it turned out. And yet, I still followed him to continue protecting my brothers who had become fools … Now, judge me as you will … I regret it all … Even defending my brothers ..."

 **What do you think will happen now?**

 **God Bless**

 **ScribeofHeroes**


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